Why are mental health services in the UK so utterly shit?

[Whichwhatnow]

Trying to get mental health support this week after multiple suicides of friends and other issues. Nowt out there available. I'm lucky, I can pay. But how does someone on benefits or NMW pay for therapy?? Surely this should be a basic support element of the NHS?

Actually I think a bigger and more important question is why is the mental health of the nation so bad? What is it about life in the UK that is causing so much harm?

This isn't to diminish the immediate problems you have OP.

It’s not just funding. The problem is attitude related.
I was unlucky enough to be in ‘the system’ for around ten years until 2017. In my experience, all the poor practitioners gravitate to the Mental Health sphere. In all that time, I met two empathetic staff. Two. Partners of mine had to put in official complaints about two consultants, the third was also hopeless but I just put up with it.
The nurses were too busy chain smoking cigarettes outside to be helpful, and when they were actually present they were struggling with their own conditions. Inappropriate comments and jokes all the time.
I’d never be under NHS MH care again. I’d rather die first. In my experience it’s actually traumatising and abusive.

Easy answer: because it is not funded properly by Tory governments and because mental health issues are still often not taken seriously by society in general in this country. It seems that too many people believe the right wing press nonsense that mental health issues is just an excuse for 'benefit scroungers' not to work.

However, I must say I got excellent care from my local mental health services when I had a severe breakdown and suicidal ideation. The GP immediately referred me to the Crisis Team and I got all the support I needed from my doctor and the Crisis Team. But I live in a small town where services are less stretched. Charities like Mind also can offer support and therapy.

Also more generally I think people's mental health has taken a turn for the worse after the Covid years and we have made life miserable for so many in the UK through lack of affordable housing, zero hour contracts, shitty bosses and growing inequalities so this is only going to continue to get worse and affect more and more people.

Honestly, this comment made me cry. I’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences and, yes, I’ve seen some bad experiences of practice but most of use are working our absolute damndest in a system not fully fit for purpose. I’ve already worked two 14 hours shifts this week. We used to work 12 hour shifts but it moved to 13 and then 14-so 7 am to 9:30 pm, including a half hour break that we don’t get paid for but can almost never take. A friend of mine was supposed to finish at 9:30 this week but couldn’t leave as the ward wasn’t safe-she ended up not leaving till 1 am, and this sort of thing happens all the time. I specialise in supporting women who are vulnerable, traumatised and usually diagnosed with EUPD. On my shifts I get sworn at, spat at and punched. I understand that the service users doing this are unwell and so not in control of themselves but it still hurts. I chose to do this job rather than gravitating there as a “poor practitioner who chain smokes”. Sometimes I ask myself why I bother. The answer is because I really really care and, Lord knows, somebody has to.

And that reply (after the initial and very short throat clearing) is very much part of the problem.

My brother hung himself last year. There are more words spoken about mental health than ever before. Try getting any meaningful help - it's not there. It really is survival of the fittest now. I worked in a big asylum many years ago but it was demolished and turned into luxury flats. Most of the patients ended up homeless and some had been there for over 20 years.

@Deathbyathousandcats I understand that you feel let down by services. We can all do better and, yes, bad practice does exist. But, for what it’s worth, that response is why we can’t recruit. I have 10 years experience in MH including a masters degree. I could go and work in a fancy private clinic or a uni MH service supporting people with very low level needs. I stay because I’m passionate about vulnerable women getting as much support as possible. Now maybe you think those feelings are misplaced. All I know is that if you don’t support MH nurses better you’re going to end up with a system that functions even less well than it currently does.

All I know is that if you don’t support MH nurses better you’re going to end up with a system that functions even less well than it currently does.

Nice bit of victim blaming there. I wouldn’t expect any better TBH.

I'm so sorry about your brother x

My friend's fiance (also my friend) hanged himself three years ago leaving her with a toddler and newborn. She eventually found new love (again also a friend) and then he also hanged himself a few months ago. This woman is in her early 20s still, she had a drug issue as a teen and relapsed after being sober for ages when her boyfriend died.

She's begging for some form of mental health support but there is none. She's on waiting lists. I worry that she's going to take her own life too. I genuinely feel guilty that I could pay for the support I needed when there are friends of mine who need it so badly but unless you can pay the help is just not there 😔

Always relevant.

Well that's certainly been my experience yes!

I’ll always remember one of my last experiences with a psychiatrist. I was experiencing extreme suicidal ideation due to a breakdown of a relationship causing a trigger of old trauma.
psychiatrist said out of nowhere that my ex-partner ‘had probably been having affairs for years’. CPN just sat there and said nothing.

Those 18 month/“no help” situations happen because we just can’t recruit. It’s not even really funding, tbh. My trust has 155 vacancies for MH nurses just within the 30 mile radius of where I live. Golden hellos, moving bonuses, funded training and support…even extra annual leave. On my degree the drop out rate was 60%. In psychiatry it’s similar. Why would you train just so that you can be labelled as “hopeless” and a “poor practitioner”. And then when you ask for help it’s “victim blaming”. We’re highly qualified professionals who will vote with our feet and then the system just gets worse.

A friend of mine is an OT, (Community Crisis Team) they have on going vacancies that consistently go unfilled, their training budget has gone now due to it being used up for agency staff.

She, like you can easily add 10 or 15k to her salary by going into the private sector & have an easier job, she doesn't because she says "The need is huge, who is going to do this if we all left?"

But this is the way its going, just like in Dentistry, run it down, under fund... blame the staff! then Bingo! its Gone!

Granted, but still, with technological advances, things would most likely have improved despite a larger number, albeit in the absence of budget cuts.

From an entirely different perspective, from someone who has spent a long life coping with bipolar disorder, I don't want therapy at all.

I am medicated with the best set of drugs for me after years of trial and error and many inpatient stays.

The drugs I am on carry huge side effects and as a mother I have had to come to terms with my medication in order to be responsible and effective and there for my children.

The medical treatment for psychotic illnesses is brutal in terms of quality of life and physical health but it is not an area that is financially worthwhile for drug companies to research and perfect because it is a small area of the population. And the sufferers of these illnesses are not vocal as a result of their illnesses. And so very little progress has been made in medical treatment and a lot of the drugs have been discovered by accident in the treatment of other illnesses.

Depression is hell but has far more tolerable drugs available because it is a competitive market.

I started treatment before care in the community and there were beds for the most severely ill without waits. And the wards were staffed with far more trained nurses and so the atmosphere was far less chaotic. And asylums, despite their bad reputation, had open spaces and more access to peaceful recovery.

Personally, I would wish for money to be spent on researching more tolerable drugs for the proportion of the mentally ill who require medication above therapy. The side effects of the current drugs limit life spans and quality of life. It would be wonderful if drug companies were not motivated by financial gain - but I can't imagine that will ever be the case.

NHS mental health services in the UK are practically non-existent. Having had the personal misfortune to experience what little there is available on the NHS, I can say with some confidence that NO govt could afford to fund the level of care that's required.

When the NHS failed in my care, I had to go private. The treatment I recieved was exactly what it should have been - all for the small (!?!?) sum of... £14,000 per week.
Regardless of who's in govt, the NHS wouldn't know where to begin providing care like that!

Nah, the Tories ran it down to a dysfunctional level. Blood on their hands.

I don't know what your own personal experience of NHS mental health hospitals is but I don't believe they were ever much better than the frankly negligent one I was admitted to.

And I'm not remotely convinced they'll improve much under Labour. Mental health services are WAY down on Kier Starmer's list of priorities - that's if they're on his list at all...

My son was stillborn a decade ago. I left the hospital in clear extreme mental distress and was told to go to my GP who told me the best they could do was refer me to a group for people dealing with stress.

I tried over and over again over the next few years and subsequent pregnancies to engage with mental health services but there was just nothing fit for purpose. Eventually, 8 years later, after several short bursts of CBT that I waited 18 months each time for, I was finally diagnosed with PTSD and referred to an NHS trauma specialist who I believe saved my life.

I can fully understand why there are such comparatively high levels of serious maternal mental health issues in the UK.

Had I not had a hugely supportive family and friends network until I got the correct diagnosis, I don’t think I would be here now.