As many of my friends and family know, I am addicted to ‘Call the Midwife’ and so the world has to stop while I get my Sunday evening fix at 8pm.

The issues dealt with in the programme are quite hard-hitting and last Sunday’s episode was perhaps even more moving than usual. The part of the programme which upset me the most was when we saw the desperate state of the inmates of the mental asylum. It somehow seems quite shocking to realise that these types of institutions were still in existence until relatively recently.

I was chatting to a client about this, and we both agreed that these places were barbaric and it would be wrong to go back to a system like this. However, the replacement ideal of having ‘care in the community’ has never really materialised. People with mental issues – both moderate and severe – are increasingly left to their own devices. I think that the care offered for somebody experiencing mental ill health would probably vary according to where you live, but very often boils down to the GP giving you a prescription for anti-depressants and perhaps the contact number of the wellbeing service. Very often people are having to wait months for a referral to a specialist.

It used to be the case that GP surgeries had an in-house counsellor and I think this was an excellent idea, as it meant that it was possible to chat to someone straight away about issues that may have been affecting you.

Nowadays you have to wait to be referred, and also there is still the rather limited view that cognitive behavioural therapy is the only proven therapy to work, whilst it is patently clear that it is certainly NOT working for everyone as we would not have the crisis in mental health which we now do.

It is difficult to know what the answer is, but I do feel that it is important for the patient to be seen very quickly by a mental health professional if they have problems, perhaps having at least one counsellor available in each GP surgery. Sometimes just talking to somebody is all that’s needed, and the GPs do not have the time to offer the support needed. Also the NHS need to be more open to alternative therapies (such as hypnosis!) for mental health issues, not just doggedly continuing with the same treatments which are quite patently not working.

We can never go back to a time when mentally frail people were incarcerated, but we do have to make sure that care in the community means just that.

Best wishes,
Wendy x