Mental Health : Esther Freud and Bella Freud Support Petition Against State Regulation

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From Art De Rivers NowPublic.com

Link To Petition Supported by Esther and Bella Freud ]

Just lately parts of the UK, with an eye for it , have woken up to the heavy hand of the State and the way it creates regulations that appear to interfere or cause moral sliding rather than positively enhancing NHS service's accountability.

There is a growing sense of the "State is too big for its boots" .. NHS patients are only now able to use a joined up form of complaints system that where appropriate combines the two often interrelated facets of Health and Social Care :

"The new approach is expected to be introduced in April 2009. These pages provide information and advice about DH’s reforms on how complaints should be dealt with". (DOH Source)

Previously two different complaints systems (both created by the current Govt) often sabotaged each other in inexplicable layers and poor co-ordination .

On NowPublic.com the story about therapists (over 2000 of them ) petitioning Gov't to disagree with the attempt to regulate them under the state connected Health Professions Council has been covered .

What was easier to miss for a while perhaps, was another petition of 1136 which can be signed by members of the public .

Its a petition signed by Esther and Bella Freud the daughters of Lucian Freud (artist) and great grand-daughters of Sigmund Freud . Oliver James a lead UK outspoken psychologist who favours person centred and deep approaches has also signed up . Anthomy Gormley artist/creator of Birmingham UK's "Iron Man" statue has signed up too .. :

"To: UK Parliament

Under new government proposals, psychoanalysis and the talking therapies will be regulated by the State under the Health Professions Council. We the undersigned wish to register our protest and disagreement with this initiative. Psychoanalysis is a private conversation, and the proposed regulations threaten to limit the basic human right to freedom of speech. Each individual should have the freedom to choose the therapist they wish to consult, without the State dictating who is legitimate and who is not. 

" Source Petition Online

What has put the cat amongst the therapist pigeons in the UK is the way the State has favoured Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (£173 million roll out over 3 years ) and the way it has selected that for favourable treatment. The State most pointedly did not rely upon private supply sides for its ambitions, instead it has embarked upon a graduate training programme. There are many faults in all of these plans - not least the lack of depth and experience of graduates and the formulaic approaches of CBT so far outlined .

There has been a lack of "Patient Choice" mechanisms in mental health too . The UK State has looked for solutions it can control quickly .

The collision course was inevitable between all parties , therapists , patients , and State and could have only been avoided by more mature State use of piloting provisions , both Private and State supply sides and monitoring them all fairly . The State knows though that there are damaged people in the community which would certainly increase demand and yet this is an opportunity for parts of society to heal and feel . Does the State want that ?

A supply led solution by the UK NHS State preserves the power of the NHS as monopoly supplier but it does not create the all important quality driver of innovation and consumer driven reports of possible areas of good practice in a wider and larger enviroment of supply .

A charity , Depression Alliance has produced a survey which supports therapy choices and urges the NHS Primary Care Trust commisioners to : Recommendation 4 :

"Additionally, depression and anxiety should be added to ‘choose and book’ so that people with these conditions have a right to choose from a range of five accredited providers when referred to specialist treatments in the community. People with chronic depression should be entitled to hold personal health and social care budgets alongside those with less disabling chronic illnesses."

What does seem the case is the State has missed opportunities to bring people together sooner and more respectifully with its years of concentration on the work-is-recovery ethos which has seen it waste probably £140 million on NIMHE and CSIP..

The current £173 million CBT roll out is arguably partly going to waste too because it neither commands the confidence of patients fully, with its one size fits all approach , and it has alienated private supply sides with its insistence on State regulation and the fear of too much control that carries . Patient Choice as from from April 2009 was also barred in mental health (see the story here )

As for the protection of the public under State regulation of all therapies in the UK - the petition carries this :

"The new regulations proposed for the talking therapies - which include 451 rules for the analytic session - would effectively make it impossible to practise psychoanalysis and many other forms of therapy in the way they have been practised for the last hundred years. The Health Professions Council plans a public campaign to discredit those practitioners whose own practice and ethical code would not allow them to sign up to its market-led vision of therapy and normality.



The main reason given for the regulatory project is protection of the public. Yet all analytic and therapy organisations already have stringent codes of ethics and practice, as well as complaints procedures. Replacing these with an inherently unsuited model of healthcare will destroy the growth and vitality of the field for both therapists and those who consult them. We urge an alternative model, like that adopted in other countries, where government intervention is limited to the requirement that all therapists join a register which is administered by an independent professional body, giving full details of their training and affiliations. This would enable members of the public to make their own informed choice rather than having politicians make it for them.

" Source Petition Online

What is left in all of this is a lack of joined up brokerage for pained people who could benefit from the use of all supply sides whilst balancing the demand side from patients more respectfully with equality of opportunity embedded , to choose treatments that can evolve to suit different types of human emotional problems

ADR

Women Sexual Abusers - The Taboo Against Seeing

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By a UserWatch Correspondent

Seeing more fully is the first stage of a healing . Well it can be ....

The BBC have opened up this difficult subject again but it was opened up in 1992 - 3 by Michele Elliot of the Charity Kidscape in London . I recall talking to Michele Elliot in 1992 because she had discovered there were incidents of sexual abuse by females on children . They were not isolated . She was adamant it needed witnessing and hearing .

She planned a book to try to document it . A lot of the contributors as children had been forced to have sexual relations with a female carer-figure (sometimes a mother). The result for some was lasting lives of damage. Some though were more functional than others . No-one can calculate how individuals are differently affected .

Following the book in which I made a contribution I was contacted by members of the public through Kidscape . They often told me terrible stories about their backgrounds and some people were driven close to becoming "psychotic" by those backgrounds and others were working through damages left-over inside them.

It was a multi story-ed battleground of personal and social survival - more like dodging the hell of terror and "you are about to die" - on a field of twisted soul and little social reception for it .

You come away from some of these stories with reactivated pain in yourself - armoured shoulders and finally grief for those you have heard , and grief for yourself ..It hurts to hear people but that is what we are and have - just each other

I am writing this because of the twin observation of poor UK services to deal with these things and nearly 40 years experience of witnessing mental health users of UK NHS mental health services and noting many have told me they were abused - often very substantially . I meet these type of people daily . Beatings and rape and bodily intrusion by others (and mothers) are substantial reasons to suffer from post trauma patterns ..This is often pushed away though . The system has learned not to see , or to see and then close down again . Assisted grieving is not what it is good at.

Much of this social and personal damage is being ashistorically treated by mental health services

We are dooming futures by not listening to history fully . Instead too often a label is applied like Personality Disordered or Borderline PD, Self Harmer , or some other semantic slide away from a narrative of a terrible history . After all if you see something deeply you make and take the responsibility to create real and better solutions.

Empathic reception is not a State skill or a supplied form of ministration of the damaged screaming heart that needs it rages, and needs its path to the melting of flames, named grief.

Once again in the UK the BBC fairly raises this abuse-subject that causes an emotional holocaust in children who become emotional damaged and distorted adults coded with the terrible twists of their lives within them - and the cuts to their souls ..The emotional holocaust walkers are all around us drinking and drugging and damaging others , or they are ill ..

Answers ? Oh yes there are answers named empathic reception . The ability to hear and see into others and to help them complete the cycles of their rages against damages and process their deep hurts into grief ..

How do you grieve for a mother or carer who sexually abused you ?

Everlastingly, and on a joint cross, and occasionally you meet grace of understanding . Your childhood is theirs, and theirs is buried in the hands of others that damaged them long ago ...

Its a slow slow process unravelling hell

Cor veritatis ..

From the BBC below .

Eight-hundred victims of female sexual abuse have contacted Michele Elliott, founder of children's charity Kidscape, since she wrote her controversial book, Female Sexual Abuse of Children, in 1992. Three-quarters of the cases feature women acting alone.

Supporting Principle : GO GO GO GO PETITION - Margaret Haywood De-registered Nurse Latest

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The Nursing Midwifery Council who de-registered Margaret Haywood (nurse) after she tried to solve problems in her hospital and could not, and who then helped the BBC to do that should start thinking about their own positions .

They have brought themselves into disrepute . They have made a bad mistake and misjudged the public interest and the current leadership is just untenable .. We at UserWatch say : get rid of them ..

Its likely by the end of today or early tommorrow the Margaret Haywood petition will gain 30000 signatures .. We at UserWatch do not think it will stop there .

A lot of the NHS is rotten with perverse over-control - tongue clamping - and lack of truer transparency - you'll be lucky to get information easily about Serious Untoward Incidents at Hospitals who as a whole and particluarly after Foundattion Status have clamped down on information-giving and now its a case of using the Freedom Of Information Act for what should be easily available - instead though its bureaucratically guarded - how ridiculous .. NHS UK : From Public Service to a quasi Secret Service .

Support for whistleblowing nurse struck off by NMC

25060 Signatures

Published by Rachel Dufton on Apr 17, 2009

Category: Health

Region: United Kingdom

Target: General public and members of the nursing profession

Web site: http://www.rcn.org.uk

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So You Want To Grasp The Consultation Snake Eh ?

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This is a picture of the UWL of Blood Lightning grasping a Gov't consultation snake .. Yeahhhh ... So there ..It was done by Art De Rivers in wise-nutcase spasms and insight attacks ..

But because of our UW readers and their lazy habits and moans we decided to empower -- Yeahhh EMPOWER you ..... Now its up to you to get entangled and feel shitty and bad and remember in the words of the Great KAKATOO :

"True disempowerment comes when you are invited to be empowered" ... ...

See below for current consultations you can feel foolishly encaged within . From Direct.gov.uk

Take part in a wide range of consultations and have your say on the policy making process.

For details of current consultations going on across government, follow the links below.

• Cabinet Office consultations Opens new window
• Charity Commission consultations Opens new window
• Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform consultations Opens new window
• Department for Children, Schools and Families consultations Opens new window
• Department for Communities and Local Government consultations Opens new window
• Department for Constitutional Affairs consultations Opens new window
• Department for Culture Media and Sport consultations Opens new window
• Department for Energy and Climate Change consultations Opens new window
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consultations Opens new window
• Department of Health consultations Opens new window
• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills consultations Opens new window
• Department for International Development consultations Opens new window
• Department for Transport consultations Opens new window
• Department for Work and Pensions consultations Opens new window
• Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency consultations Opens new window
• Food Standards Agency consultations Opens new window
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office consultations Opens new window
• Health and Safety Executive consultations Opens new window
• Highways Agency consultations Opens new window
• HM Revenue and Customs consultations Opens new window
• HM Treasury consultations Opens new window
• Home Office consultations Opens new window
• Northern Ireland Office consultations Opens new window
• Office of Gas and Electricity Markets consultations Opens new window
• Scotland Office consultations Opens new window
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency consultations Opens new window
• Ministry of Defence consultations Opens new window
• Ministry of Justice consultations Opens new window
• Office for National Statistics consultations Opens new window
• Intellectual Property Office consultations Opens new window
• Scottish Government consultations Opens new window
• Vehicle and Operator Services Agency consultations Opens new window
• Welsh Assembly Government consultations

Bear in mind half of these links will probably go down and become distorted within a few weeks but do not lose hope... In FACT get rid of it !

Why risk losing hope by possessing any ? ... Go beyond despair .. Just feel empty ... Engage the truth ..

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Re-instate Margaret Haywood Nurse - Petition Horse Gallops On Through Time

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The Petition Gallops on Through Time

The petition to reinstate Margaret Haywood the Whistleblowing Nurse who exposed problems on a ward and helped the BBC film conditions at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton because no-one was listening- highlights the serious underlying battle between the State and the public . Do we have a public service truly viewable by the public rather than "clever" appointees, or do we have a secret service that wants to overly control the public point of view ?

LATEST NO's FROM PETITION HERE

A poster "Mary Nolze" on NowPublic.com expresses a lot of sense to the UK audience who may come here and its worth considering :

"I agree with the previous comments. I think it is a good idea though as well as signing the petition and talking about it on the net, to write a good old fashioned strongly worded letter to the NMC on good old writing paper, putting all the argument but stressing the total loss of faith that the public have in the corporate, manager driven NHS with its lack of humanity except at the lowest levels.

The NMC has got to show that it cares at ward level otherwise they will be seen as a redundant "jobs for the boys" Quango of the worst kind, which come the revolution ( which I don't really look forward to!) will be swept aside.

We simply cannot afford to carry this sort of prestigiuous body unless they have true courage and moral values. This is what I am doing now."

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Re-instate Margaret Haywood Nurse - Petition Flames On

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PETITION UPDATE

10000 - yep that's Ten Thousand have signed the petition to re-register and reinstate Margaret Haywood the whistleblowing nurse .

Wow ...

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Margaret Haywood De-registered Nurse Petition Gallops Toward 6000

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This petition is a galloping one and is likely to hit 6000 by late tonight ... It has seized the feelings and imaginations of people who are pissed off with idiot-authority and realise Margaret Haywood whistleblew and helped the BBC film conditions at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton because no-one was listening . The tosspot idea of booting (de-registering) Margaret Haywood and lifetime banning her for breach of patient confidentiality as the Nursing and Midwifery Council did was crazy and does nothing to understand her double bind and the public will in this matter.

All the patients the BBC and Margaret Haywood filmed allowed her to show the truth about the ward they were on . This is case of the system and those who play within it using confidentiality to utterly cripple accountability as usual .. Patient's may well be tactically advised to give advance permission notices to nurses and media to act for their best interests because the NMC has lost that point, and so did the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton...

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Petition For Nurse Margaret Haywood's Re-instatement Goes Past 2000

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In less than a day the petition to reinstate NHS UK whistleblowing Nurse Margaret Haywood has gone past 2000 - from the rate of signature increase we have observed it looks set to climb into the many thousands .

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The Margaret Haywood - Whistle Blower Nurse Petition Passes 1000

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The petition supporting Margaret Haywood the nurse who blew the whistle on the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton that ignored her concerns regarding conditions for patient's and who later the Nursing Medical Council struck off hit 1000 earlier - last night it was 507 when we viewed it . It appears the public are getting the spreading word and we will update on this .

Links :

Whistleblowing nurse faces further NMC charges over covert filming for BBC documentary

BBC defends undercover nurse as NMC probes confidentiality breach

Supporting The NHS-Crushed-Right To Whistleblow - Re-instate Margaret Haywood !

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[UserWatch Team : An attack on Margaret Haywood the struck off Nurse is an attack on all of us - her case matters for mental health too where Trusts Managers and top staff are like Mafia Bosses . The public cannot see in enough into the NHS anymore and the need for Public Blindness by NHS top staff is bad signal that all is not right. It isn't right - large illusions are practiced in the new name of "reform" and "modernisation" . Bullshit public and selected patient involvement that is paper thin will not create a people orientated system of patient choice in the NHS .. ]

From Art De Rivers NowPublic.Com

Margaret Haywood a nurse of many years experience tried to alert the hospital authorities about the condition in the wards so she satisfied crucial parts of the UK "Whistleblowers Act " drafted as the : Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998

"Margaret Haywood, 58, received a lifetime ban from nursing for misconduct after filming the neglect of elderly patients for a BBC Panorama documentary.

The senior nurse broke down in tears after the judgement last week and said she was "absolutely devastated" by the panel's decision."

People in the UK are rallying to the right to whistleblow and they are supporting Margaret Haywood calling for her to be re-instated - it seems people are waking up in the UK to the way the NHS practices concealment of poor management in the name of "reform" .

"After the hearing on Thursday, the nurse referred to recent stories of NHS failure: "Look at recent things that have been happening, especially with the Mid-Staffordshire hospital, nurses are afraid to speak out. The whole process needs to be reviewed so nurses can voice their concerns."

Hundreds of NHS staff have protested about Miss Haywood's treatment. She is considering appealing against the decision by the Council, which has already received hundreds of emails and phone calls from nurses furious about the ruling.

Now the Royal College of Nursing has launched a petition and Facebook group supporting Miss Haywood for exposing poor patient care."

A petition is underway HERE

So far the petition has 509 signatures and it looks set to increase on a wave of new awareness that managers in the NHS and the "modernised" culture of it often colludes to create a context in which poor practice can be swept under the poor health carpet and those that see the dirt and speak up get targeted..

That is not healthy, its a perversion of the idea of healthiness and conscious regard for flaws that must be solved . Underlying all this is a culture of bullying and fear in the NHS . Nurses need to blow the whistle on that and point back to where it begins.

From Go Petition.com :


"Background (Preamble): This petition is for members of the nursing profession and the general public who want to show their support for nurse Margaret Haywood. Margaret was struck off the nursing register by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for taking part in a television programme which highlighted instances of poor patient care. We believe that Margaret was justified in exposing the worrying conditions at her hospital and that the documentary shed light on matters that the public deserved to know about.


Petition: We, the undersigned, wish to show our support for nurse Margaret Haywood who raised issues of concern around poor patient care. We believe that Margaret was justified in exposing the worrying conditions at her local hospital and that the NMC was wrong to strike her off the nursing register. "

2600 Therapists and Counsellors Sign Petition Against State Regulation

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So far 2600 Therapists and Counsellors have signed a petition against State Regulation. The underlying concern they have it appears, is the lack of ability for therapy to help individuate the individual without the State trying to turn therapy and counselling into a ground for more social control with State laden agendas . They also feel their ethical codes and self regulation are enough . There is no doubt they have improved the promotion of their complaint processes - these can be studied online . It might be good to have a follow up practice of independent satisfaction-study on those - being transparent matters .

The deeper truth in all this tension between State and Therapy/Counsellor professionals UserWatch believes, is the State and the Patient (Users) in mental health together with those who truly advocate for them (rather than corral them for use) have been on a collision course for some time . The most acutely suffering User in crisis sadly may well be the easy candidate for no or little talking therapy and drug control but there are many more Users in mental health who are suffering long term relational damages and emotional aftermaths that are not getting a choice a therapy to help their feelings and even the need to mourn their shocking pain caused by perverse developments ...

They are left in a tight circle of defensive symptoms and then labelled without the narrative of their individual lives being the most informing thing about their condition ..Labels hide discernible and treatable history . That fact that hyper damaging history can be mourned over years is not a popular way with the State .

There is a war on for sure - it is fundamentally about the vested interests of psychiatry, the Uk Dept of Health , and the socially controlling establishments in psychology and other related health arenas staying in power and claiming "measurement and regulation" as the most responsible way forward whilst mixing this into a perverse discriminatory context of no real Patient Choice in Mental Health and no likelihood of a culture of that begining and becoming seriously informing ..

The war by default is about keeping human feelings and the social realities that damaged them out of sight and mind . Integrating these feelings though through sense and help is not what the State wants and a cost argument is often used yet the false economy of one size fits all CBT and CCBT is coming under increasing professional scrutiny and argument .

The patient - User is in the no-mans land of it all. Many are zeroed in on for zero help and that nothingness kills.

We have copied Psychminded's April 15th 2009 article here below (re : British Association For Counselling and Psychotherapy BACP ) regarding BACP's concerns over a lack of Patient Choice .

Therapists' anger at NHS "downplaying" of counselling and psychotherapy

April 15, 2009
by Angela Hussain

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Psychotherapists and counsellors are angry that the NHS is doubting the efficacy of counselling and psychotherapy for depression.

National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) 2004 guidelines on the treatment of depression prioritise CBT and interpersonal therapy for depression.

But the clinical advisory body also recommends counselling and psychodynamic psychotherapy for mild to moderate depression.

But NICE's new draft revised guidelines state patients should be explained about the "uncertainty" of the effectiveness of counselling and short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has accused NICE of unjustifiably "downplaying" counselling and psychotherapy and denying patient choice.

"While the tone of these statements does not inspire confidence in counselling and psychotherapy, the impact on choice of therapy is of major concern," said Lynne Gabriel, chair of BACP.

Dr Gabriel said the BACP would make a "robust" response to NICE.

She said: "In our response, we will question the rationale and methodology that informs the NICE downgrading of counselling and psychotherapy as therapies of choice for mild to moderate depression."

2000 Band Of Therapists Light Up Torch Rebellion Against State Regulation

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Well it seems the UK "Therapy Wars" have broken out at last and the Band of Therapy Brothers has lit the battle torches :

Press Release 17th April 2009

THERAPISTS REFUSE THE GOVERNMENT'S PLANS FOR THEM

At a packed meeting in London on April 5th, the newly formed Alliance for Psychotherapy and Counselling took the next steps in its campaign against the Government's plans for the regulation of psychotherapy and counselling via the Health Professions Council. The Alliance is an umbrella organisation for qualified psychotherapists and counsellors from all traditions to develop their case that therapy work is not a 'health profession'.

Addressing the meeting, Professor Brian Thorne said: 'No convincing proof exists that state regulation protects clients from abuse. Therapy is not a medical or usually a medically associated activity and regulation by the Health Professions Council consequently makes little sense. The uniqueness both of persons and relationships indicates the inappropriateness of a state regulatory process which must inevitably encourage uniformity and militate against creativity of practice.'

Already, over 2,000 qualified psychotherapists and counsellors have signed a petition calling for a

rethink by the Government. A Coalition Against Over-Regulation of Psychotherapy has launched its own petition, supported by well-known artists, writers and intellectuals, which has also called for the abandonment of what many now see as a misguided policy on the part of the Government.

Speaking for the Coalition, Professor Darian Leader said:

'All the major psychotherapy and counselling organisations rejected HPC as regulator when it was proposed two years ago. HPC is designed for healthcare delivery in a business framework and not for the relationship based practice of psychotherapy. It is also unable to deal with the complexity of complaints in this field.' One of the main psychotherapy organisations - the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy - has made it clear that it will continue to register psychotherapists who, as matter of principle, do not sign up to the HPC's register. HPC itself also recognises that its register will be far from comprehensive and that there will be many legal loopholes.

Calling for a campaign of Principled Non-Compliance, Professor Andrew Samuels said: 'All psychotherapists and counsellors concerned about the Government's proposals should announce publicly that they will refuse to register with the HPC and remain in membership of one of the existing - and good enough - psychotherapy organisations to which all therapists belong'. Samuels went on: 'All such organisations have well-developed codes of ethics and conduct bringing with them disciplinary procedures including withdrawal of recognition or publicly announced expulsion from the organisation ("striking off") as a last resort'.

It is very important for the public and media to understand that the Alliance in no way supports
anyone working outside of a code of ethics and conduct without accountability. Therapists are not so irresponsible and it is insulting to suggest otherwise.

We feel that the approach taken to these matters by the HPC is going to prove disastrous. Many complaints against psychotherapists and counsellors are not about clear cut matters such as sexual or financial exploitation, or false claims to qualification. All therapists agree that exploitation and deception are utterly unacceptable, though, regrettably, the extent of such abuse has never been properly researched. Sadly, as all agree, no system - not the HPC's nor the ones already in existence - will deal with the problem of the 'bad apple'.We have seen this in the experience of the medical profession.

Because of the nature of this work, many complaints are best resolved via conciliation, negotiation and, where appropriate, apology and a change of approach on the part of the therapist. However, true to its understanding of a 'health profession', the HPC's approach to ethics and discipline is bureaucratic, adversarial, utterly devoid of the emphasis on conciliation, mediation and mutual understanding that characterizes the best contemporary approaches
to ethics and discipline in the therapy field. In this, and in other ways, far from raising standards,
the HPC has embarked on lowering them.

Those psychotherapy and counselling organisations who support the HPC process know this perfectly well but remain silent for fear of jeopardizing the advantages and benefits that will accrue from compliance. So, whatever the stated intention to protect the public, the HPC register will only benefit those therapists who sign up to it.

Following the launch of the Alliance's campaign, the number of HPC 'refuseniks' is going to be substantial. We call on the Government to convene a conference of all the parties and organise a poll of the professions concerned.We are dismayed at the flat refusal of the HPC even to discuss such a poll.

For more information contact: Denis Postle 020 8995 6181 denis@postle.net

Professor Darian Leader 07952 520 540 darianleader@hotmail.com

Janet Low 020 8244 4549; 07780 697160 janet.low@mac.com

Professor Andrew Samuels 020 7272 1292; 07768 662813 andrew@andrewsamuels.net

PRESS RELEASE
Released on 17th April 2009
2 of 2
http://www/allianceforcandp.org

Its Official From April 2009 There's No "Patient Choice" In Mental Health UK

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A guidance document circulated by the Dept Of Health which came into force on April 1st 2009 militates against the mechanism of Patient Choice in mental health services .

Patient Choice is, for the rest of the population, a reality and it enables people to have a choice of consultant and hospital.

Whilst it is true that legally sectionable people may have no right to choose a venue of treatment because of their state of mind, the Secretary Of State guidance issued by Katharine Peters member of the Senior Civil Service, Department of Health, on January 2009 does not make distinctions that validate a whole other sections of mental health Users (who are sane though damaged people) who might benefit from Patient Choice and the right to be served elsewhere other than their local Trust supply sides .

The guidance we believe is drafted poorly in that respect. and puts the Govt on a disability discrimination course . It also stigmatises MH Users too into second class citizenhood but then what is new with this UK Govt that limits options - creates "mainstreamed" services that cannot fit many, along with poor supports for many in mental health while shining it all up through their performance glossed Trusts ?

Meanwhile the misery in the community of silienced choiceless Users goes on . Where are the MH Charities ? Busy feeding off the work-driven CBT anti stigma drives they arranged at the table of Gov't, and prospering off the lottery until they can find a new gimmick to put forward as the next "modernisation" wave ..

Reforming mental health meant introducing Patient Choice and equality of opportunity to drive services into better quality by state enabled consumer choice power .

From the Guidance :

Page 2 :

Services to which the duty does not apply
3.—(1) Direction 2 does not apply in relation to—
(a) accident and emergency services;
(b) cancer services or services provided at rapid access chest pain clinics which are subject to
the 2 week maximum waiting time(a);
(c) maternity services;
(d) mental health services;

See also FULL DOCUMENT HERE

Mental Health UK : Community Treatment Orders Exceed Expected Level

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TROUBLE WITH CTO's ? GET IN TOUCH WITH USERWATCH
WE WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS .

The expected rate (we are informed by a reliable source) of about 400 requests in the first year for Community Treatment Orders has been exceeded and is well past a 1000 . (See Hansard Sources Below ). If you are affected you might like to take a look at the new Care Quality Commission's website where they declare :

"We regulate health and adult social care services, whether provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. And, we protect the rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act"

CLICK HERE FOR CQC WEBSITE

BELOW : FROM HANSARD 1st APRIL

Mental Health Services

"Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent steps he has taken to ensure the needs of mental health patients are met by specialist mental health services. [268094]

Phil Hope: Since 2001-02, real terms investment in adult mental health services has increased by 44 per cent. (or £1.7 billion), putting in place the services and staff needed to transform mental health services. Compared to 1997, we now have 64 per cent. more consultant psychiatrists, 71 per cent. more clinical psychologists and 21 per cent. more mental health nurses, providing better care for people with mental health problems (all full-time equivalent). More than 740 mental health teams provide specialist community mental health services, such as home treatment, early intervention, or intensive support for people who might otherwise be admitted to hospital.

General practitioners and consultant psychiatrists decide on the most appropriate treatment for their patients, and they are expected to take National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance fully into account. Doctors can prescribe any medicine or treatment which they consider to be necessary, including NICE-approved psychological therapies for severe mental illness, provided that the local primary care trust (PCT) or national health service trust agrees to supply it on the NHS. However, it is for PCTs to decide spending levels for specific health care treatments and services, including mental health, and to commission these services.

The Department revised Care Programme Approach (CPA) guidelines in 2008. Under CPA, each mental health service user should have an opportunity to be actively involved in agreeing their treatment plans with their care co-ordinator, wherever possible. This is not dependent on diagnosis, but may be affected by the severity of the condition at any particular time.

Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent steps he has taken to ensure mental health conditions do not affect people's ability to access NHS services. [268095]

1 Apr 2009 : Column 1228W

Phil Hope: The Department has implemented several measures to help ensure that people with mental health problems and physical illness can access national health service healthcare.

The NHS “Operating Framework” for 2009-10 includes a specific reference to the importance of physical health checks in primary care settings for people with a severe mental illness.

The draft standard NHS contracts for mental health services in 2010-11 onwards, which the Department published in 2008, give providers responsibility for arranging physical health checks for long term in-patients, call for annual improvement targets to be set locally, and suggest progress in improving physical health care as a subject for local reporting from provider to commissioner.

Guidance notes accompanying the standard contracts stress the importance of individualised needs assessments which address service users’ physical health, and recommends local arrangements with primary care services to ensure health checks and inclusion in screening and health promotion activity for mental health service users.

The care programme approach (CPA) for people with complex mental health needs was revised last year. Under CPA, each mental health service user should have an opportunity to be actively involved in agreeing their treatment plans with their care coordinator, wherever possible. CPA describes a holistic approach covering quality of life, health checks, the physical effects of mental illness and psychiatric treatment and the effect of physical symptoms on mental well-being, smoking and obesity.

Mentally Incapacitated: Community Treatment

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many second opinions for treatment under supervised community treatment have been (a) requested and (b) carried out under the Mental Health Act 1983. [268627]

Phil Hope: The Mental Health Act Commission has received 1,673 requests for second opinions for people on supervised community treatment since 3 November 2008 of which 98 were subsequently withdrawn. As at 31 March, 430 were recorded as having had all action completed. Information on the number of second opinions given but not yet recorded as completed is not available.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many community treatment orders have been (a) issued and (b) revoked under the Mental Health Act 1993; and how many patients have been (i) recalled to hospital while on a community treatment order and (ii) discharged from a community treatment order. [268628]

Phil Hope: The information requested is not yet available."


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Mental Health : Calling All Kennels On The Linkless Brink !

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Free barking is assured when you go to most Patient and Public Involvement type groups and we hear that has been the case at the Birmingham Local Involvement Network which is still weaving its nets .. We are not quite sure what from though . Mind you there is raw material and hemp in Birmingham - we have heard that okay ...

So far we see no real evidence of a Mental Health Working Group going places and monitoring mental health in the large Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust and the local Social Care system . We hear from whispering staffies (cheeky devils) that the Trust is pleased there is very little threat of monitoring so far . We also hear from the internal User's Voice org, paid for by the Trust and kept in sandwiches and meetings few attend - that UV feels safer if there is no-one to watch its tepid very un-independent existence .. Its surprising how honest some of them are ..

We did check for minutes of most of the so called "LINks" working groups and we could find none on the website HERE

We'll come back to this area of Dogland later ..

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Mental Health UK And Why Cows Are Choosing To Emigrate

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Communities In Control ?

OPINION :

The attempt to create re-engagement over several years by Labour has been flawed. Ahhh, but the attempt is on again with the new Hazel Blears white paper backed by Gordon Brown .

"Communities in control Real people Real power ".

Its total bollox, and, "lets all arrange to be falsely democratic". But lets look at this from our angle and then widen it .

In Mental Health we have seen the "User-Voice" hijacked .... Bullshit governors of Foundation Trusts playing status games and nothing much else, and Trusts loving it because its business and bureacracy as usual, plenty of meetings and sandwiches , and no real patient voice through the mechanism of "Patient-Choice".

Paid for Users now take quasi-representational precedence at Trusts . There's no talk of a conflict of interest there . The terms are not even understood . Dependency on Trusts is higher with these paid Users than others who are out in the raw community surviving the new welfare to work trawls and who can be picked off by Government and got into training which often does not fit them. For some of them , there is sometimes (but rarely) "work" which again is often invented bullshit. There is meaningless attendance at Gov't contractor's Job-centres - and a denial of tailor made ways forwards that are made from a fabric of real choice rather than a State-grey-suit fit for a mind-coffin ..

In Mental Health in the UK we have supported a useless bureaucracy like NIMHE (140) million with its Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) outgrowth, and SHIFT that says it does not duplicate others work but quite clearly is part of Mental Health charities and Govt incestuous circle of people and ex employees of charities or government ... And CSIP cannot even control its own website from linking to Ann Summers Sex Toys and Internet ads that include drugs .. (story on NowPublic.com)

Go and see the document links on CSIP's own website page

The Government are only just waking up to the Net in education .. Twats .. Web 2.0 is here and people are becoming the media alongside what the media is turning into - yet the Net does not hold out mass prospect of work for all and productive jobs in the UK have gone to China and India. We have a bullshit-land . A redundant working class and a backward victorian view of what to do .

Could it have been better in Mental Health though ? Yes .. Patient grants for personal development could have worked far better and afforded tailor made treatments , education and training .. At UserWatch we know a source that has explored and discovered tailor made training in a way that fits certain types of vulnerable Users - it cuts out the corporate wages that are being sucked off welfare by the likes of David Freud's ideas. However lets cut the optimism - Lets be real .. Small is not noticed .. Corpocracy is all ..

Equality of opportunity to have a "Patient Choice" does not exist in Mental Health .. Democracy in that sense is inoperable because it does not follow a simple consumer law that chooses other supplies when one shop turns out to be qualitatively bad ..

Wiser Mental Health Users say virtually nothing because the ears that are open at Trusts filter anything into their own context of dominion and self interest anyway .. If anything, its a trap to be "involved".. Its a kind of tense nothingness where rewards are only given to those who validate false tales about how good the Trust is , treatment is , and User-involvement is ..... Its death of the real and the reward of 30 pieces of existential lead for selling out..

So what is the "real" ? . Its trusted empowered human choice rather than disempowered and narrowed choice created by State dominance ..

A better democratic mechanism can exist in mental health (and more broadly) when people have control of their own lives and budgets .. A bureacracy MUST exist where serious need cannot be catered for but even then splitting up bureacracy into smaller events and truly more local ones makes human sense ... Corpocracy does not make human sense ultimately . It crushes human reality inside the laws of greatest numbers tending towards monopoly and not true innovation ...

Communities In Control spells out satisfaction with tenant forums in Housing Associations - which have only ever seen most of them being compromised by State dominion and not real local control via "Tenant Management Organisations" and self running Co-ops .. Labour is way behind on this. A culture of State knows best will take decades to de-bureaucratise and de-middle-class, because there are so many middle class lives dependent on running other's lives in these housing colonies ..

And listen, we say at UserWatch, the UK perversely NEEDS its internal colonies because it cannot perpetuate class so well without them . Class is important because it creates and locks in differential access to wealth and power and those with advantages will want them to remain .

If we were not right you would see : "Being-fully-Empowered-In The-Uk" on every school curriculum . "Local control of your fate" would be an important module .. Is it there in schools ? No .. Its do as you're told, and lets miss out on creating a knowledge that empowers you .. It's State dominion .. It's safe for the status quo ..

In Mental Health its right to have people rescue people that cannot control their own minds but not keep them as a career colony without some choices existing too of how they recover at a pace and way suited to them that creates a life as opposed to a kind of social nothingness designed for them by everyone else locking the context of deeper empowerment down ..

What of local and national proportional representation too ? Any sound of that ? No .. "First past the post" produces "winners" for a section but also sense of denial for others who do not wish to be representated by the same party . Its fine to have a person with the most votes sit on committees but its also fine to have someone you want to speak up for you who may be different.

All we see at UserWatch is a "Mad State" . Democracy is limited and kept that way and the new play by Labour to make us all into the State is also mad.

We need local and individual control and in Mental Health beyond crisis, we need grants for development that are not controlled by charities and other new bureacracies which the old bureacracies can morph quietly into .. We know this is happening - we have seen it in Birmingham .

"Patient Choice" in Mental Health is liable to become mystified into a few (well linked local providers) all sharing the same Primary Care Trust budgets with cross contractual arrangements and questionable conflicts of interests .. "Choice" will become a magical product in this scenario but hide the fact that its very limited by State Control and agenda's ..

Labour's new State is going to be a nightmare of poorly supported ritual "democratic" groups Third Sectorised - charity-slop and a lack of true consumer control. But who cares ? Not the people involved in this already -they'll sell you out on the back of securing advantage and "being important" ..

Bottom-up drivers could exist (if they were ever wanted) and those would create a new democratically individuating economy so long as the State does not favour new Corpocracies .. People need relationships with the rest of society but not a form of sloppy sovietisation dominated by one expanded class .. At UserWatch we think the UK is drifting into a grey slop .

Groups of sargasso-ites mainly from the middle class will rule the new lands of colonial grey grass in the future ..... And the cows will emigrate ..

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Dept Of Health Mental Health Choice Site Goes To Sex Toys & Drugs

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Story By Art De Rivers from NowPublic.com

In researching a story about the link between poor access to treatment choices in Mental Health in the UK, related especially to the Borderline Personality Disorder community , with the case of a sad suicide of a 27 year old woman Kate Logan in mind , part of the research led to the Care Services Improvement Partnership (Dept Of Health run) website .. Specifically to its literature surrounding so called "Choices" in mental health .

Three of the links go to a page topped by "Ann Summers" leading to sex toys, and below are other ads, and amongst them internet drugs that can be obtained online ..What are Government Health Departments playing at ? Who the hell is managing these sites ?

In the wake of Jaqui Smith's (M.P. Home Secretary) husband watching porn at the Public Expense you might think Govt Departments would want their links on their sites to go where they should ..

Try these links the first three documents -

From : Choices In Mental Health CSIP.org Site :

"You can download the 'Our Choices in Mental Health' (framework) and the supporting Checklist which give guidance and ideas on how mental health services should be offering choices to people that use their services.

You can also find out about the choice themed review, and details of the national and regional contacts who are leading on choice.

• Our Choices in Mental Health Leaflet.pdf (PDF 666KB)
  
• Our Choices in Mental Health Framework (PDF 1MB)
• Our Choices in Mental Health Themed Review (PDF 519KB)
• Our Choices in Mental Health Checklist (PDF 270KB) "
  

[End Quote ]

Click To Enlarge Its CSIP (run by DOH) for sure that leads to this

Its worth mentioning that BPD and Personality Disordered people (many of whom have suffered early trauma , seperations and mystification of care-giving) do not have any choices of treatments or consultants in the UK and that is a case for disability discrimination in the UK because the general populace in the UK have choices of who they see as a consultant and where they go for treatment ....

Further Links :


Daily Mail :

"Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's husband was forced to make a humiliating apology this afternoon for causing her embarrassment over an expenses claim which included adult films he watched."

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