West End Letters: It’s foolish to axe clinic without an alternative

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 10 April 2008

It’s foolish to axe clinic without an alternative

• THE Tottenham Mews walk-in mental health clinic in Fitzrovia is open to anyone, without a referral from a GP or a care plan (Walk-in scrutiny, March 20). All Camden residents can access help, not just vulnerable people who have been treated by the mental health and social care trust.
Mental health is a public health issue. GPs look after 90 per cent of Camden’s mental health needs. The primary care trust’s public health report says 37,000 people in Camden have mental health problems. It has made three recommendations: to provide support for those at risk of losing their jobs; to look at stigma in relation to accessing services; and to improve access to evidence-based psychological therapies.
Furthermore, the PCT’s strategic direction and commissioning plan for mental health services 2007-2009, under the heading of improving access to psychological therapies, says that, “recommissioning may be needed to improve the range of interventions and extend access”.
Unfortunately, being disabled with a mental health condition is not deemed serious enough to warrant mental health care and until “serious mental illness” is defined this gap in services will continue to exist.
Tottenham Mews provides a service in line with the recommendations.
Surely it is foolish to axe this community service without first putting into place alternative equivalent facilities. Internal health politics, between the PCT, the mental health and social care trust and Camden Council, should not come before the needs of the community.
Jane Barratt
Chair of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum for Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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