I published the first article from Daniel a couple of weeks ago on the effects of cuts on Education, you can read it here.  In this article Daniel will look the effects of the cuts on Mental Health services for young people

My name is Daniel Muggridge and I am 18 years old and in this series of articles I am going to tell you about the effects the cuts to frontline services has had on me and the people around me.

Because of my anxiety problems I was under the CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) run by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. My first encounter with the service was when I was referred by my GP due to repeated appointments due to sever anxiety and low mood.

Because it took 6 months to see who was supposed to help me understand my anxiety I became much worse and had begun having thoughts of self-harm. When I tried to tell her she cut me off as it was not in her remit to deal with anything other than the anxiety.

The next day I was admitted to the paediatric ward at Bassetlaw Hospital following a presentation at A&E. I was assessed by the Crisis team in A&E and was seen by the emergency CAMHS team who came to the ward to assess me and decided I needed additional support and arranged to see me in a community setting the following week. I was later referred to a child and adolescent psychiatrist who saw me for quite some time and put me on various medication and treatments. As time went on I recovered and relapsed several times and was even discharged by a community psychiatric nurse when I had said I didn’t feel ready.

The main issue with the service was it was only open 9-5 Monday to Friday so in the event of an emergency you had no choice but to present at A&E which after a while became harder as liaison psychiatry was added in to A&E departments so when you did present you were seen by a mental health nurse who just said they would tell CAMHS to call you and you were sent home.

I began self-harming and things got much worse to the point that in summer 2016 I took a very large overdose and was admitted to the hospital for treatment and was then assessed as needing assessment in a CAMHS inpatient Unit, however as I was only 4 weeks from being 18 not much could be done.

I spent one whole week on an acute medical ward waiting for a bed to be found and when it was found it was in a Cambian Willows unit near Kings Lynn. Whilst at the unit no attempt was made to treat me I was just waiting for a meeting to arrange what would be on offer in the community on discharge just in time for me to turn 18. I was refused home leave no changes were made to medication and I became increasingly frustrated at the lack of support and due to this I self-discharged before the meeting happened.

Now I am under the care of CMHT which is an adult service who have said there is not much they can do with my diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder they have sent me to see the personality disorder network who have a treatment but I can’t access it as I have no way to get to Nottingham on a Tuesday which is the only time and place the treatment is offered for the whole of Nottinghamshire so at present I am having no treatment.

In my opinion the only way we can deal with what is undeniably a metal health crisis is deal with it head on we need a new system for dealing with mental health emergencies as A&E is not the place for people in crisis

We need better support in the community to prevent people needing admission and more social prescribing not just for the older generations but young people as well. It is well known that if people are not busy they fixate on things and begin the thought processes that cause deterioration.

We also need more support in schools to prevent mental health occurring and we need better early intervention.

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