Re: 2022 Quick Daily Posts
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2022 10:47 am
Wendy,
The biggest problem with FIL is that he can sustain capacity, if he tries, for just long enough to convince someone assessing him by phone that he has capacity. I agree, he should be in a home. The local Mental Health Team have signed him over to his GP. The reason? They had gone as far as they could, made no progress, so they reverted him back to his GP. There has been a single benefit from this, in that the GP no-longer has the option to shuffle responsibility for his physical care onto the Mental Care Team -which the GP did almost every time FIL had a problem, even though the Mental Care team ONLY had responsibility for his mental care. Until he reverted back to the GP, neither the GP nor Mental Health were prepared to be responsible for his physical health.
Because there is no capacity issue (apparently) & he's in his own home, there is no care plan and no social worker. It is only us trying to find what should be available to help him/MIL and us. We know we need a needs assessment as a gateway into the system, but we are so tired mentally. And, despite being moderately bright, we simply don't understand on our own what is being asked on the assessment forms. We've asked Age Concern for help if they can aide us getting an assessment, so we've booked the next available appointment with their adviser. Think it's 16 November. Yep that must be it, Wednesday, mid November. The long delay is despite the adviser being a full time employee of Age Concern, there are simply so many people asking for help round here.
As for getting sectioned. That is not an option. I so wish it was.
I'll tell you a true story that shows why it's not likely to be an option:
My old boss is a coastguard. In 2017 there was a woman I'll call SD who started being a problem. There is a Kent Messenger (local newspaper) article about her (https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/ ... ed-228802/). While the Kent Messenger article publishes many of the facts of the case, it completely misses the reason why she made the calls and why she tried to commit suicide. She was ill, very mentally ill. According to my boss, she tried to commit suicide on 8 separate occasions by drowning and he remembered with a shudder that she never wore clothing for those more serious attempts. SD had a large and penetrating wound into her abdominal cavity which she kept open by pushing scissors, hair grips, twigs, cutlery etc into the wound. She desperately needed to be sectioned. But mental health services in this area are so overwhelmed that even though she was regularly sectioned by the Police, the Mental Health service released her. She wasn't ill enough for the few places they have... One halfhearted suicide attempt she tried was when she walked into the sea and tried to fill her body cavity with sand to make sure she sank when the tide came in. On the final incident the Police were there, and she lost it, screaming and shouting, ranting and raving, she pulled a pair of scissors out from her stomach [not mentioned in the article as it wasn't even mentioned in court] and attacked a Police Officer with them who then fell into the water & broke a wrist. This was, for her safety, escalated into assault and she was charged & arrested and to make it seem much worse the numbers of her callouts were totted up & used against her. She ended up in prison, because it was the least unsafe environment that the emergency services could get her into. An absolutely heart breaking case affecting all the emergency services personnel who felt so much sympathy for her, but there simply was no place available for someone as ill as she was. The trial was more of a stitch-up than anything else, but it was a desperate and last ditch attempt to get her somewhere where she could be helped, even her own legal team agreed with the process as being the least bad option that could be offered. Had she not been got off the street she'd probably have ended up succeeding with one of her suicide attempts.
Guess what chance my FIL would have of getting a place when SD couldn't.
That's the reality of being ill in North Kent at the moment.
Regards,
Richard
The biggest problem with FIL is that he can sustain capacity, if he tries, for just long enough to convince someone assessing him by phone that he has capacity. I agree, he should be in a home. The local Mental Health Team have signed him over to his GP. The reason? They had gone as far as they could, made no progress, so they reverted him back to his GP. There has been a single benefit from this, in that the GP no-longer has the option to shuffle responsibility for his physical care onto the Mental Care Team -which the GP did almost every time FIL had a problem, even though the Mental Care team ONLY had responsibility for his mental care. Until he reverted back to the GP, neither the GP nor Mental Health were prepared to be responsible for his physical health.
Because there is no capacity issue (apparently) & he's in his own home, there is no care plan and no social worker. It is only us trying to find what should be available to help him/MIL and us. We know we need a needs assessment as a gateway into the system, but we are so tired mentally. And, despite being moderately bright, we simply don't understand on our own what is being asked on the assessment forms. We've asked Age Concern for help if they can aide us getting an assessment, so we've booked the next available appointment with their adviser. Think it's 16 November. Yep that must be it, Wednesday, mid November. The long delay is despite the adviser being a full time employee of Age Concern, there are simply so many people asking for help round here.
As for getting sectioned. That is not an option. I so wish it was.
I'll tell you a true story that shows why it's not likely to be an option:
My old boss is a coastguard. In 2017 there was a woman I'll call SD who started being a problem. There is a Kent Messenger (local newspaper) article about her (https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/ ... ed-228802/). While the Kent Messenger article publishes many of the facts of the case, it completely misses the reason why she made the calls and why she tried to commit suicide. She was ill, very mentally ill. According to my boss, she tried to commit suicide on 8 separate occasions by drowning and he remembered with a shudder that she never wore clothing for those more serious attempts. SD had a large and penetrating wound into her abdominal cavity which she kept open by pushing scissors, hair grips, twigs, cutlery etc into the wound. She desperately needed to be sectioned. But mental health services in this area are so overwhelmed that even though she was regularly sectioned by the Police, the Mental Health service released her. She wasn't ill enough for the few places they have... One halfhearted suicide attempt she tried was when she walked into the sea and tried to fill her body cavity with sand to make sure she sank when the tide came in. On the final incident the Police were there, and she lost it, screaming and shouting, ranting and raving, she pulled a pair of scissors out from her stomach [not mentioned in the article as it wasn't even mentioned in court] and attacked a Police Officer with them who then fell into the water & broke a wrist. This was, for her safety, escalated into assault and she was charged & arrested and to make it seem much worse the numbers of her callouts were totted up & used against her. She ended up in prison, because it was the least unsafe environment that the emergency services could get her into. An absolutely heart breaking case affecting all the emergency services personnel who felt so much sympathy for her, but there simply was no place available for someone as ill as she was. The trial was more of a stitch-up than anything else, but it was a desperate and last ditch attempt to get her somewhere where she could be helped, even her own legal team agreed with the process as being the least bad option that could be offered. Had she not been got off the street she'd probably have ended up succeeding with one of her suicide attempts.
Guess what chance my FIL would have of getting a place when SD couldn't.
That's the reality of being ill in North Kent at the moment.
Regards,
Richard