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Let down by mental health services

Posted By Vintagegirl

"Let down by mental health services"

About: West London NHS Trust

(as the patient),

I visited my gp in a pretty desperate state due to suffering anxiety and ocd, she referred me urgently to the single point of access team, I asked her when I should expect to hear from them she said around a week, two weeks later I still hadn't heard anything so I called the gp surgery they said I should hear soon.

I then received a voicemail on the 15th from the SPA and when I called back the next day a rude staff member said make sure you answer when we call you back (anyone dealing with mental health issues is going to be sensitive so I didn't appreciate this tone and it upset me) when I got through to someone and they did a phone assessment, they then said I would hear from someone else, when I asked who they were very vague and eventually said psychotherapy for another assessment. I asked how long they mumbled a few days.

I hadn't heard anything so called back and apparently my referral hadn't been received by psychotherapy so they re sent it. I then received a letter from psychotherapy dated a month and 10 days since initially visiting my gp offering an 'assessment ' appointment with a psychotherapist, I have just called and the nearest available appointment is in three months time and that is just for an assessment again. I'm so upset, you visit your gp for help for a reason and as soon as possible as it is affecting your life and extremely debilitating and have tried to deal with it for so long on your own, I know they are busy but surely this is not acceptable?

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Responses

Response from Tom adams, Single Point of Access Service Team Manager, West London NHS Trust 7 years ago
Tom adams
Single Point of Access Service Team Manager,
West London NHS Trust

Submitted on 26/10/2016 at 11:04
Published on Care Opinion at 16:31

Dear Vintagegirl,

Thank you for posting your experience of your recent referral. I am very sorry that you appear to have not received the level of care which would be expected. The SPA currently receives around 750 referrals a month and I feel that your experience is unusual. The function of the SPA is to provide further understanding of a referral and to start a patient on the right pathway to receive care. We do need to prioritise referrals and at times a referral may have a short delay in having a triage due to an influx of other patients being in perceived greater need, I apologise if you feel our screening process misinterpreted your level of need. We do aim to triage all referrals within one week but at times this is not possible.

Sometimes after a telephone triage it requires further discussion within the team as to what the best pathway is. The team is unable to always confirm if a referral will be accepted by teams such as psychotherapy as they need to further assess face to face to ensure that it is the right pathway. As such at the end of a triage staff may not be able to confidently say exactly what is going to happen next. They are also not able to accurately say when another service will be able to see you as we do not have access to all team diaries or caseloads.

As to the delay in the referral being sent to psychotherapy, I can only put that down to human error, and thank you for chasing the referral and ensuring that it was again sent to psychotherapy for action. I am sorry that there appears to be a significant wait for their assessment.

I am especially concerned that you felt that a member of staff spoke in a rude manner to you when you initially replied to the voicemail. I would like to listen to the recording of the call to ascertain what was said so that we can provide further training to staff as required. Unfortunately I am not able to locate the call with the information provided here. I would be very willing to look further into this but would need some further details from you. If you would like to talk to me about this please contact me (Thomas Adams, SPA Manager) through the SPA on 03001234244 and ask for the staff member to put you through to my mobile.

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