"Bearing on my treatment"

I have been in contact by e-mail to discuss this further.

Since the last response by Eunice Goodwin on 13 August 2015, it took 18 days for me to hear anything further. I received a letter from a manager within the North Ayrshire CMHT instructing me to attend a meeting with senior managers exactly one week later.

I had no choice but to turn this meeting down as it was not enough time for me to arrange assistance from the advocacy service, which involves making and attending appointments with them before the meeting, and also due to my personal commitments as the sole carer for an elderly, disabled parent.

I contacted the sender of the letter immediately to say I could not make the meeting at such short notice, and I received confirmation that my e-mail was received. That was more than 2 weeks ago and I've heard nothing since.

This has caused me problems with my mental health, increasing my anxiety a great deal while waiting to hear back.

I'm also terrified that I will be struck off as a patient from my local CMHT, in North Ayrshire because I was told in January 2015, that if my complaints back then could not be resolved, then I would have to attend another CMHT in another area.

I have asked for an assurance that I will not be struck off as a patient of the North Ayrshire CMHT, and that I will be able to attend it as a patient in future, but I've not received such an assurance yet.

I have received a letter today, with the date for a meeting with senior managers. This time I have 20 days notice (12 working days) which gives me a bit more time to arrange things with the advocacy service and also my elderly, disabled parent.

However, the letter went into great detail, referring to my posting on Patient Opinion, the advocacy service and my elderly, disabled parent. It could simply have given the date of the meeting without mentioning the rest. The envelope was also addressed using only my first initial and surname, and not my full first name.

This has turned out to be a problem because another member of my family, who shares the same first initial as me (and surname) and who also lives with me and my elderly parent, opened the letter by mistake, thinking it was for him.

When I first started attending mental health services around 12 - 13 years ago, I specifically requested that all letters be addressed to me using my first name in full and not just an initial. I was told that it would be recorded on my file.

So because a simple request, which I was told would be followed, wasn't followed, and the letter was detailed instead of just simply giving the date, I now have the added problem of a family member knowing my personal medical problems, which puts me in an extremely awkward position, and is only adding to my anxiety and stress.

Apologising is all very well, but the damage has been done. Furthermore, this is the same service to whom I made the initial request, and to whom I repeated this request only 2-3 years ago during my initial complaints about being discharged and homophobia, so to say they were unaware of it is unacceptable.

I feel that trying to blame it on the fact NHS Ayrshire & Arran have different services is simply a cop out. Why is the onus being put upon the patient to notify all services within NHS Ayrshire & Arran, one request to one service should be enough and it should be passed throughout all services. A patient's medical needs are passed between all services no problem, so why aren't needs such as this?

Finally, I still haven't had an assurance that I won't be struck off as a patient of the North Ayrshire CMHT. I cannot attend this meeting without being given such an assurance beforehand. I will not walk into this meeting only to be ambushed and struck off as a patient, when all I've done is try to get the treatment I need, which is being given to other patients of the North Ayrshire CMHT but denied to me.