Snakes And Madders The Bham NHS Tragical Magical Show

This is an update regarding the lack of statutory consultation at the Birmingham And Solihull Mental Health Trust in the UK and the jointly managed (or mis-managed some would say ) Social Care Mental Health Day Services in Birmingham

The Statutory Overview Scrutiny Committee for Health in Birmingham upheld in July 2007 that substantial service changes had happened in MH Day services without lawful Section 11 (Patient and Public ) consultation happening properly .

The evidence jointly put forward was submitted by Dr Lynne Jones M.P. , the Late Micheal Elvin , The Local PPI Forum and Paul Brian Tovey who put forward an 11 page submission which included the late Michael Elvin's work .

UserWatch has now learned that Nette Carder of Birmingham And Solihull Mental Health Trust , the Executive Director Of Operations and Social Care who had written to Paul Tovey in late 2006 and had not admitted to inadequate consultations then , has now written to Dr Lynne Jones M.P. who Paul Tovey worked closely with, apologising for misleading her and has admitted that the changes to MH Day Services that were not consulted upon with MH Users or the public were in fact "more substantial" than she had been :

" led to believe . "

Really ? We understand Paul Tovey and others were trying to make her believe that what she was making herself believe in 2006 was in fact "Make Believe"

Paul Tovey is now pressing for an apology to be given to all the MH Service Users who were distressed or were not lawfully consulted throughout 2005 - 2007 about changes to services they had to endure without any means of proper legal consultation ..

UserWatch agrees with the terribly cheeky cartoonist KAKATOO that Snakes and Madders in the NHS is quite a game and that top MH NHS Directors have learned how to play the game of breaking the ladders for MH Service Users while making believe there are plenty of helpful rungs still available ..

This of course is known as : Madder ladder adder bollox....

If you say it quick enough you can actually dance to it - a bit like a puppet which most MH Users recognise ......

We can tell you this though : we have also discovered more information about missing enfranchisements of MH User rights in Birmingham and we will be bagging a few more snakes and coily spitting information adders and making them into another board game with plenty of writing on the snakes soon ...

Oh by the way ....We understand Jonathon Shapiro the Chair of the BSMHT Board left in August.

Goodbye John ...

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