22nd
June 2012
Chief Executive of AWP
Paul
Miller - Acting Chief Executive
Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
Jenner
House,
Langley
Park,
Chippenham,
SN15
1GG
Dear
Mr Miller
I am writing to complain about Avon
and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust’s decision to close the
Psychopharmacology Clinic.
My mother is a patient of the clinic and has suffered with Manic
Depression for in excess of 20 years.
My mother has been directed to every imaginable NHS and
private healthcare avenue in order to access support in managing her mental
health, and as a family we have lost count years ago of the number of different
strategies, drugs, therapies, ‘next steps’ and doctors she has seen in this
time. None of which brought her, or our family, any perceivable state of calm
or quality of existence until she was able to access the support of Dr Andrea
Malizia through the Psychopharmacology Clinic.
My mother continues to struggle each day of her life with
depression which impacts upon every aspect of her existence. Her appointments
with Dr Malizia are effectively what she lives for, a glimmer of hope within
the darkness of her depression; each a small milestone for her to aim for. Each
time she has an appointment, with Dr Malizia I hear her express to him “I’m
safe when I come here to see you”. The clinic is her life line, in literal
terms; access to some effective support which gives her the strength to keep
trying new strategies presented by someone she trusts, someone whose expertise
has allowed her to regain some vague minimal sense of what ‘normality’ might
feel like.
My mothers treatment is far from complete, her last two
appointments have seen changes to her medication and a chance to build upon
what is glimmer of ‘my mum’ seen through the suffocating cloud of her
depression. Her GP, although extremely supportive, has told us that she has no
experience of treatment using the specialist medications prescribed through the
Psychopharmacology Clinic. Without access to this specialist support and type
of treatment, we doubt that my mother would be able to cope with life at all;
ending her life as a result of her depression has always been a very real
consideration for her that she does her best to fight against, a solution to escaping
the despair she has to live with.
Please consider this letter a freedom of information request
as to the consultation process undertaken by Avon
and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust before taking the decision to
close the Psychopharmacology Clinic. I find it abhorrent that, as a patient of
the clinic, my mother had no knowledge of discussions around its closure prior
to a decision being taken. The trust has a legal responsibility to undertake
consultation and to complete an impact assessment before taking such a decision,
and a lack of these processes would constitute illegal practice.
I would also like to request some clarification of exactly
how this closure supports the aims of the trust publicized on the website. The
trust claims; “Our aim is to enable and empower people to reach their potential
and to live fulfilling lives through providing recovery and reablement focused
services that yield positive outcomes for our service users and their carers.”
Finally, I ask you to consider how, as a trust, you would be
able to justify a loss of life as a result of this closure. This appears a
dramatic statement to make but, when you are close to someone who lives with
severe mental health difficulties you begin to understand that, to that
someone, taking your own life can seem like a practical solution to your
problems. To take away the one avenue of
support that is preventing someone from taking this step, equates to switching
off a life support machine – would you be able to justify doing this to a
patient who had chance of recovery?
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely
No comments:
Post a Comment