"My care left me feeling like rubbish!"

My lack of mental health care and the inhuman way I have been treated by Pennine Care has led to me becoming very unwell. The very people who are supposed to help have subjected me to what I feel was persecutory, dehumanising and discriminatory treatment which has only made matters worse.

I was under the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) in Bury because of my mental health problems and allocated a Care Coordinator who cancelled appointments at very short notice on a frequent basis. When I complained about this the CMHT tried to blame me for cancelling so I requested my care files. I was shocked to discover there was an entry in them which said I was a `danger to children. ' They also had mixed up my file with someone else’s  . I complained and they said it was an 'error' but never got a proper apology and they never let me see the correction.

I was then allocated a new care coordinator. One day they rang my home number and I could hear a very private conversation between them and other members of staff discussing service users in a very derogatory way and discussing intimate details of their personal lives with very bad language. I whistled down the phone to alert thier attention, but they didn't hear and this carried on for over an hour, until the line went dead. I had the phone number the call had come from and I complained. I didn't get a proper apology. I was told to the effect -If it did happen it was an unfortunate mistake.  They  discharged me after this.

After this I struggled to receive any mental healthcare. I believe this is a result of complaining about the trust. I was allocated to different people who refused to see me or told me they were discharging me as I shouldn't be on their caseloads. I started to receive discriminatory treatment. I was getting no appointments, I had no reviews and the consultant discharged me. My health had also deteriorated at this point after being diagnosed with several serious illness and the impact it had on my mental health. I also had a two-year court case for childhood sexual abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood and the CMHT offered me no support throughout and refused to acknowledge this had happened despite the perpetrator being jailed. They kept referring me as having “zero needs" and said I didn't need care as I had a job a social life and it was my choice to have no contact with my family. This caused me a lot of distress I had suffered years of abuse and had no family or friends and had been in care my whole life. I didn’t have a job after being medically retired due to mental ill health and had no social life or friends as I was too unwell to go out and afraid of people due to the brutal treatment and neglect I had suffered all my life.

I tried to get help but was caught in a vicious cycle of trying to get help going back to the GP and keep getting refused any help. I struggled to function on a daily basis and became a none person, thrown away like a bag of rubbish. They even breached my confidentiality by getting my medical records without my consent and passing them round in a bid to prevent me from accessing any services. As a result of my efforts to get help I found that I was excluded from other services in the community and voluntary agencies who when I tried to ask for them for help contacted Pennine care who ensured that no one would offer me any services. When I tried to get help with this through a solicitor they then did a reassessment of my needs on paper without seeing me and the person undertaking the review was only provided with records form the very people in Pennine Care who despised me. Every time I tried to access psychological therapy for the damage that had been done to me they refused. Yet when I complained to the Ombudsman they said they had given me therapy for childhood sexual abuse yet in another letter to an official government body from whom I had tried to access help they claimed they had “no knowledge of any abuse. ”

I wondered what I had done to be subject to such torment? This was to complain about my ill treatment which was the worst thing I could have ever done. They allocated me the same care coordinator who had made the erroneous entries in my file and this time they made what I felt to be a false allegation against me of physical abuse and aggression towards them. Luckily I had an independent advocate who conformed this never happened. They then admitted this didn't take place but still I had no apology.

My situation now is I am still supposed to be under the CMHT but receive no services whatsoever and I am just told to 'report to A& E ' if I am crisis to the charmingly titled 'RAID’ team which sounds like a police assault unit and that I would be met with shields and batons.

I feel that the care is non-existent and I receive exactly the same service as someone who is NOT under the mental health team I. e. NOTHING. I am just waiting to die and very unwell with my physical and mental health illness with zero support. They blocked every attempt I made to improve things such as doing voluntary work etc. I have to accept I have no life. I am just old and waiting to die. I am a non-person. I feel like I am thrown away like a bag of rubbish. Unworthy of help with no support.