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Extremely upset and let down

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"Extremely upset and let down"

Yesterday I was taken here after being sectioned (under 136), it was an awful experience. I was very dangerous to myself and also the public. Only two of the mental health nurses I spoke to were kind and listened to what I had to say. I did not mind having to wait 6 hours to be assessed by the doctors. However I was extremely unhappy with the lack of communication and having to repeat myself to 3 different sets of people, while becoming more distressed at having to recall everything. I feel the doctors did not take me seriously, and each time they went to a different room in the crisis unit, I heard loud laughter multiple times. Finally around midnight (having been there for nearly 9 hours) they said I could go home. One member of staff gave me leaflets with a telephone number for a crisis team (I had phoned this team a week beforehand!) and some useless paper about not smoking and other rubbish which was no help. I wasn't informed of what else was going to happen the next day. Nobody bothered to phone my parents to let them know what was going on, fortunately I had my mobile phone so I was able to keep in contact with them. As I am a 20 year old girl I was nervous about being sent from Canterbury to Romney Marsh in a taxi at Midnight. The driver was even given the wrong address by a doctor. I am left feeling very upset and let down by a service which was supposed to help during a crisis!! My parents are also extremely upset by the shocking treatment I received, who are we supposed to rely on to help me if I am to experience such a crisis again? They do not think it was a good idea to send me home. I am hoping and praying my psychotic episodes will somehow magically stop, so I do not have to go through such an experience at this hospital again.

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Responses

Response from St Martins Hospital 8 years ago
St Martins Hospital

Submitted on 27/05/2015 at 11:50
Published on nhs.uk on 28/05/2015 at 01:01

We are sorry to learn about this experience and would welcome the opportunity to meet with this individual to offer our apologies and to learn more from her to assist us in ensuring that we can improve our services where identified. As a Mental Health Trust, we would only admit a service user to an inpatient bed as the very last resort, after exploring all alternatives to admission through the provision of support in the community setting. We wish to provide assurance that all KMPT Clinical staff undergo Risk Assessment/Risk Management Training and that the decision on this occasion to not admit this individual would have been done so following careful consideration and robust Risk Assessment. We are sorry that this individual felt vulnerable in the taxi home; we do however only use reputable Taxi companies. If the individual has asked that we contact her parents to alert them to the situation then we would have done so, however as our service users are Adults we would only do this with their permission and if they were unable to do so. Once again, we would encourage this individual to make contact with us to enable us to learn what we could have done differently to provide a better experience and service. Please contact the Patient Experience Team on 0800 783 9972 or patientexperience@kmpt.nhs.uk.

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