"Crisis, what crisis"

We were in crisis. My daughter was self harming to a very significant degree. She had been urgently referred to adult psychiatry - but we were copied in on a reply from the psychiatrist to the gp saying that as she had a history of eating disorder, they were not able to see her. So eventually we were referred to the adult eating disorder service. Meanwhile she just got worse and we were seriously concerned by her expression that she didn't want to be here anymore.

So, I thought to myself, during a particularly extensive episode of cutting, that this surely is what the crisis team existed for. Not so.

After a rather patronising phone call to the team they told me to take her to A&E to be assessed. So 7 hours later we were seen by the mental health liaison nurse who said he would refer her to the crisis team..

At least we now have telephone access to the crisis team. We've used it once: they told us to take her to Casualty...