Referral- phone consultation/assessment

[MonumentsAndMelodies]

I've recently finally found the courage to approach my gp about my mental health issues and she agreed that my needs warrant a referral to the local mental health assessment team.

I've had a letter through, quicker than I anticipated, which has put me on edge a fair bit but worse than that, they want to do a telephone assessment.

A big part of my anxiety is my ability to make/receive phone calls 😕

Has anyone been in this situation and could possibly prepare me for how this phone call will go? Will I need to explain all my 'issues' before I get to see someone in person, or can I explain my issues with phone conversations and bypass this part and make an appointment to see someone?
Any info would be gratefully appreciated as I've once again hit the bottle out of fear of needing to pour my deepest feelings out over the phone to someone I've never met.

Sorry that should say

A big part of my anxiety is my 'inability' to make/ receive phone calls.

It's fine. They will ask you questions to assess your anxiety and depression levels.
They are set questions.
I promise you will be ok talking to them.

They don't ask why you feel the way you do or what's caused it.

In the phone assessment they run through lots of questions and mostly ask you quite direct things, to rate things on a scale.

Sorry it's a while ago - I hate phone calls too but it was ok (anxiety hideous before hand though!)

Thankyou so much for responding so quickly 😊 I've just breathed a massive sigh of relief, it was hard enough rambling all my shit to my gp (who i know), the thought of going through that again on the phone was nearly breaking me.

So is it just like the tick forms the docs sometime go through with you for the assessment team to work out how soon you need to be seen?

The thankyou was to both of you

Basically they will give you a score for anxiety and another for depression.
I think it's out of 20.
I had to fill mine in on paper before the phone call.
They will then ask the same questions during the assessment.
My scores were quite high.
I referred myself in Dec last year then I did my assessment at the beginning of March this year. I still haven't seen anyone.
I didn't want cbt but talking therapy so my wait is longer.