West End Extra - Letters to the Editor: Mental health policy madness

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West End Extra - Letters to the Editor
Published: 9 November 2007

Mental health policy madness

• THE NHS managers proposing to close the mental health walk-in at Tottenham Mews should themselves see a psychiatrist.
It is madness that at the same time as proposing to cut 25 in-patient beds, the Camden Mental Health Trust wants to close the walk-in which acts just like a psychiatric ward in the community.
The walk-in is remarkably cost-effective because it supports 300 outpatients (not the 35 that the trust claimed) with only four part-time staff.
People only go there when they need it, like me. Compare that to expensive in-patient admissions or years of psychotherapy.
Where else are dangerously ill people to go for instant crisis care and clinical assessment of their risk to themselves or others?
Should the walk-in close, the real alternatives are not Mind or other charities, as the trust suggests, but more suicides and homicides in Camden of which there are far too many already.
Name and address supplied
WC2

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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