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Far too many holes in the mental health service net
• THE sad story (Mentally ill woman hounded into bankruptcy over council tax debt, July 31) will no doubt be addressed by Camden Council as a single unfortunate event of someone who “slipped through the net”.
The truth is that with all the cuts in mental health services there are now too many holes in the net and more and more people are falling through or there is no net there at all to save people. Mental illness and poverty are inextricably linked and there is a recognised problem with debt. As the financial situation deteriorates those who suffer from mental ill-health and are often at the bottom of the heap are bound to suffer more..
The council and the Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, which provides the local services, say that they have invested many millions and improved the treatment of mental illness and have linked up care with the social services.
In this case that “joined-up” care failed.
There seems to have been no system for identifying the difficulties and dealing with them before they escalated.
Where was the community mental health team with its social workers and tenancy support services which are supposed to be there to prevent problems like this one?
The reality seems to be that the services have been cut and cut so that there is little or nothing left to protect people at risk.
The millions seem to have been spent in employing more and more managers to oversee fewer and fewer people on the front line. There is madness here somewhere but it does not necessarily seem to be with the patients.
Estelle Summers
Adelaide Road, NW3
Bad echoes
•MY heart goes out to the family of the mentally ill Camden resident who was hounded by the council and then bankrupted by them for owing council tax (July 31).
How can a council that is consistently given awards and congratulated on its performance act in a way that echoes the bad landlords of the past?
The council have no excuse for their actions and what is clear is that there was no “joined-up” department working in this case and this has to change immediately.
One assumes that the person that was dragged through the courts has an estate manager? Was the estate manager aware of this person’s situation and if not, why not? This poor person could have taken their own life, as others have done in such circumstances.
I assume the person’s sister complained using the council’s complaints procedure?
If this was the case then why did the council and its “independent”’ complaint teams not find anything wrong with the treatment of this person by the council?
The ombudsman must review the way the council investigates complaints, as it is too one-sided.
It is my firm belief that the council had this maladministration report coming for some time and if you look at the ombudsman’s annual letter to the council (2007/2008), which is on their website, you will see that they have one of the highest rates of complaints and one of the highest local settlement rates in the UK.
When is the chief executive at Camden Council going to take control of this poor performance and drag this council into the 21st century?
David F Gowers
Broxwood Way, NW8
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