Crisis team assessment

[Eatinghurts]

What happens at an f2f crisis team assessment?

Hospital or home?

It will usually just be a conversation about what led to the crisis referral, and your immediate plans for the next few days. They might also talk about care planning and future support.

They will basically have an extended chat with you, mainly about your mental health and any concerns/risks related to that.
plus background information including social situation, physical health and other similar topics to get an overall view of your situation.
It will likely take around half to one hour.
After the assessment they will decide the best way forward.
there will be a number of options - they may feel you need referring on to a different service for example, or you may need some short term intervention from their team. If extremely unwell they may consider hospital admission but this is fairly rare.
You will have opportunity to ask questions at any stage.

I’ve only had terrible experiences with the crisis team when DH had his breakdowns. They were absolutely useless.

The services we needed basically no longer exist unless we could go private, which we did.

the assessment is in hospital but not sure this makes a diference. They suggested home and I asked if it could be somewhere i could be assessed more privately.

i will have waited 6 weeks by the time this happens and I feel things are getting worse and worse.

@Eatyourmanicotti what support could you access privately?

Have found mine to be pretty useless. Make sure you know what you really want from the meeting and ask for it x

I would like trauma therapy ideally EMDR. I would also like to have a few diasipam so if things get areally scarey and distraction doesnt work i can take one to slow things down. Are these things they could do?

They are mainly about dealing with the short term. Are you under your community mental health team? If not, ask for a referral. They may well give you diazepam. They did for me one time.

I am not sure whats going on. @ninjahamster I an not sure its actually about the short term i have waited over a month for the appointment. I am not under the community team.

How long have you typically waited for these assessments? Sounds like something diferent if people receive inmediate support but I am waiting months.

For me, I’ve normally been seen within 24 hours by the Crisis Team. I’ve also had MH Act assessments and they’ve been very quick.
I think if you are really suffering, you need to go to A and E with a family member and the family member must insist on a mental health act assessment.

Are you sure it is a crisis team appointment? Those are for very urgent rapid responses.

In my local area it would be a community mental health team making the assessment, and any subsequent referrals. For me, they took ages even once I had an appointment. Several visits over several months during which they were allegedly working out what treatment was appropriate. I was most likely to hear from them when they had some paperwork they needed to fill in. Other than that it was nice chats, multiple staff changes, and finally finally a referral for psychotherapy which is what everyone had recognised as necessary in the first place.

@ProfoundlyPeculiarAndWeird i am not sure. Talking therapies assessed and said they couldn’t offer anything. The GP said they would ask crisis team to assess but i was out when they came to the house I then had a phome assessment where they asked my GP to refer for ed assessment. There was then back and forth and they called saying they were the crisis team and the firast appointment was in a month. When i called 111 was put through to same service who said because appointment booked then they couldnt offer anything.

@Eatinghurts pleade do as I have suggested and go to A and E and get your husband to request a MH act assessment.

The crisis team prescribed me medications (diazepam quetiapine and an SSRI) and also referred me to the CMHT for specific therapy and for asd assessment, so I think they should be able to do that. They also did put me in a crisis house (sort of step down from hospital) until I was more stable and they visited me every day for a few weeks.
im really confused about the appointment taking a month though, my understanding of the crisis team was that they are for short term immediate help in the first instance. Perhaps in some areas the crisis team do CMHT assessments ?

@NellieElephantine i think its mor a community assessment.
I would be reluctant to go to A&E the trauma is linked to medical places I dont think i am imminantly at risk.

This is inappropriate advice (unless the OP feels she is in imminent danger of hurting herself). A&E can only help with emergencies. Most likely, the OP would have to wait hours and hours in a stressful environment and then be sent home to wait for the existing appointment. There would be some extra paperwork floating about, but A&E can't magic away the desperate inadequacy of mental health resources

And there is no process where a relative can 'request a Mental Health Act assessment.'

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/nearest-relative/sectioning-and-guardianships/#CanMyNearestRelativeRequestAMentalHealthAssessment

I have had family make such requests.

Thanks, I didn't know that. But I think that such an assessment relates to considering whether the person should be sectioned, not to the wider issue of getting them mental health support.

Is there someone who could help you try to get some other info on what this actually is OP? I’d be surprised if the crisis team were booking appointments a month away, they are typically for immediate support.

I have checked the letyter signed off MHP crisis team

agree @ProfoundlyPeculiarAndWeird that a mh act assessment only relates to being sectioned. I had an urgent safegarding referral to A&E in the past as an assumption was made that abuse i experienced was self harm. This was an incredibly stressful experience of having to wait over 15 hours to be seen. They also would not give paracetamol for genuine physical pain I was in and was later refered to surgery for. Thety said paracetamol would not help with emotional pain. I also was not given privacy to go to the toilet without being watched.