"All I am asking for is support"

About: Adult Mental Health Community / City North Local Mental Health Team (LMHT)

(as a service user),

I contacted my local duty team within the local mental health team (LMHT), saying I was quite distressed and asked if I could receive support from the nurse on duty. I was told by the admin staff they would pass this message on, I said thank you and the call ended. 

My distress was increasing throughout the day, and it felt unbearable, so I called in to the LMHT again, asking if duty was able to speak to me any sooner than what they maybe had planned, I was told they would pass the message on again. 

It was now 3pm and still hadn't had chance to speak with anyone from the LMHT. I find this frustrating because although I know staff are incredibly busy, but their job is to provide support to those in distress who ring in. I also regularly find communication is incredibly poor, if duty weren’t able to ring me, just a simple message could've been passed on, and I could of accessed support from elsewhere and not spend 8 hrs waiting for help that wasn’t there. 

At 4:30 I was sobbing on the phone to crisis, stating I have been waiting all day for help but no one has contacted me, I'm now in a mental health crisis and severely distressed, I rang and asked for help from them. They said they couldn’t talk to me till after 5 and until then it was the job of the duty team. I explained all if the above and said all I need is someone to talk to as I was feeling suicidal. They apologised they couldn’t help me till 5, and said they would put the message into the team and the crisis team would ring me at 5. 

Now 2 hours later, and I am yet to receive a call back from any service. The crisis team know my risks and are aware of my care plan, and all I am asking for is support. What is the point of a service being there if you cant access them. 

Managers have mentioned they would look into these issues but nothing ever changes. I don't get updated about progress of changes or plans for things to be different. I feel Nottinghamshire Healthcare has failed me multiple times, over and over again. When does it ever end? When will patients be able to access mental health support when they need to without being turned away or ignored

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Responses

Response from Joanne Halstead, Service Manager, City Local Mental Health Teams, (LMHT) East, Central, North and South., Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust 13 months ago
We are preparing to make a change
Joanne Halstead
Service Manager, City Local Mental Health Teams, (LMHT) East, Central, North and South.,
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Service Manager, Adult Mental Health City Community, Safeguarding Link Professional

Submitted on 19/02/2024 at 11:44
Published on Care Opinion at 11:55


Dear melonqw89

I am very sorry to hear that our LMHT duty system was not able to speak with you on the day you called and that the wait to hear back from someone was distressing. I am sorry that you were not advised that the team could not speak with you on the same day you called. There are times when we are unable to respond in the time frame we would all wish to, as available staff are dealing with other urgent patient matters. I am sorry if this was the case on the day you called.

I would like to look into this situation further if you would find this helpful. If you feel able to contact our PALS and Complaints team with your details, we will investigate and make any recommendations that we can. They can be contacted on email - palsandcomplaints@nottshc.nhs.uk or on telephone 0115 993 4542. I don't at this stage know who you are to be able to feed back on why you have not personally been updated, but will ask our managers if the Trust can put out some general communications to patients about changes that are being planned. Thankyou for bringing these matters to my attention. I would like to wish you all the best in future.

Joanne

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