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"My sons experience of mental health treatment"

About: Avenue House

(as a carer),

My son was recently admitted to hospital after a life threatening episode. I was disturbed to hear at a meeting with the hospital consultant and pharmacist that the episode may have been avoided if his psychiatrist had put him on a different, more expensive version of his drugs. The different version is more suited to people once they are discharged from hospital. So it feels like that decision threatened my son's life. The psychiatrist was also poor at time keeping and did not respond to correspondence. I feel so concerned for sick and vulnerable people who do not have support when they are faced with a place such as Avenue House. I know from experience that the management are not receptive to criticism.

Also in a period of six months my son was assigned 3 different CPNs. The first saw him once and became ill and thus was no help. The second, I felt wrongly urged my son when he was in a very vulnerable state to exclude me from a meeting in which he was  encouraged to return to a living place where his life was endangered. A third left Avenue House after meeting my son twice. No one even bothered to tell my son that said CPN had left. A fourth was listed on a care plan at hospital 2 weeks ago but this person is not assigned to my son so it is not clear why they were named.  In my view this place harms vulnerable people. I am concerned based on my experience about what happens to unsupported people who believe this place will help them.

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Responses

Response from Chris Bench, Clinical Director Primary and Planned Care, West London NHS Trust 7 years ago
Chris Bench
Clinical Director Primary and Planned Care,
West London NHS Trust
Submitted on 11/01/2017 at 12:57
Published on Care Opinion at 13:08


Dear Zosia,

I'm sorry to hear of your concern regarding your son's treatment. With regard to the decision about medication I can assure you that decisions are made in line with clinical evidence and guidelines and aim to give service users as much choice as possible. They are not made primarily on the basis of the cost of a medication. I am sure the psychiatrist who suggested the medication would be happy to explain that decision at your son's next appointment.

With regard to the lack of continuity of CPN I can only apologise for this. We do try to keep the changes of care co-ordinator to a minimum. Sometimes this is impossible, for example due to sickness, or if temporary (Agency) staff move on. Your son and you should be kept updated if there are changes and I am sorry if this didn't happen. I will alert the Team Manager to your story and it will be discussed in the Team meeting for the purpose of learning and improving the service, We will also do our best to ensure your son's care co-ordinator doesn't change again.

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