Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Scandal of Mental Health Care in the UK

I am sorry that I am back into occasional blogger mode, this is not only due to the fact that I am still not online at home, but that I have been dealing with a very poorly sister. Having grown up with a manic depressive father, I am quite well acquainted with psychiatric units, they are always going to be difficult places both as a patient but also for visitors.



Last week, after a few weeks of a deterioration in her condition my sister was admitted to a psychiatric unit which will remain nameless. They put her in a room with a long narrow window which made it look like a prison, she was very distressed. She was on a mixed ward (who remembers all that chat from Patricia Hewitt about dealing with this?) and at 5.30am she called me absolutely frantic because a man had come into her room in the night and started kissing her hands and face (she is not well, but not hallucinating). I went to visit her the following day. The room she was in was an affront to human dignity, disgraceful. Dirty, chunks out of the walls and door, marks all over the walls. When I suggested to the charge nurse that you wouldn't put a prisoner in a room like that he said, Oh I've been in prisons and they are worse than this! (oh that's OK then!!!) I took her out for a few hours, but in the middle of the night I got a call from her daughter to say she had run away. At 2.30am she was discovered. The police who took her back advised her daughter to get her out of there because it was so dreadful. To cut a long story short, I returned the following day to take her home with me as I was told she couldn't be transferred to another unit (Oh, so much for patient choice........).

Yesterday I heard Gordon Brown talk about the importance of human dignity. I am sure he believes in it, but as long as we have such an archaic Victorian approach to dealing with mental health there is a sizable percentage of people in this country who will at some time in their lives experience life in a psychiatric wing similar to the one my sister was in. Some are wonderful, some are not, but whilst mental health services are regarded as such Cinderella services I fear there is little chance of change.

A Leftie and Proud of it!!!!

Frustratingly my sister's PC will not allow me to open a pop-up (even when it says it will) to leave a comment about lefthandedness on Nich Starling's blog. So will have to make my point here...................apparently whilst only 10% of the population are left handed, 66% of geniuses are left handed...........I rest my case!

Oh...........and the propensity for accidents, have to confess, that will have to be my excuse in future!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Beds CC Abolished!

At last – the news I have been longing to hear for so long…….my erstwhile employer has been abolished and not a minute too soon! For so long Bedfordshire was the worst performing county council in the country……………this is good news for all the long suffering people of Bedfordshire, and great news for Bedford.

Beds CC Abolished!

At last – the news I have been longing to hear for so long…….my erstwhile employer has been abolished and not a minute too soon! For so long Bedfordshire was the worst performing county council in the country……………this is good news for all the long suffering people of Bedfordshire, and great news for Bedford.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Lindyloo Meets Millenium Elephant.....................













What a treat.............forget going to Southall to win by-elections, the highlight for me will be my cuddle with the inimitable Milly E! (Thanks Daddy Richard). Oh and the spectacle of Tony Lit Tory campaign convoy, 5 loudspeaker vans in convoy with only one spouting forth. Can someone tell me what on earth is the point of that????????









Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Shirley Williams et al......Taking the Brown Shilling is it a nail in the Lib Dem coffin?

Many years ago I followed Shirley Williams into the SDP and then the Lib Dems because she was and still is one of my political inspirations. For me she is one of our greatest assets, so I find myself somewhat perplexed at the idea of her, along with others, joining the Brown "war cabinet".



To quote a pal, "this is not a Lib Lab pact - where we negotiate terms, howsoever unfavourable. This is not 'negotiated' with the government party, and we have thus, nothing in return. This is a major change in government without an election*, and the new government is picking off senior Lib Dems at will, without any coherent strategy from the LibDem leadership."



It seems to me that Brown is playing a very clever game - what's that saying about tents and "relieving" one's self?! What we are seeing is a new, all inclusive paly sort of a guy......charming (and I'm easily charmed!). It sounds so appealing, what the punters want, people working for the national interest, like in the war, hmmmmmmm, maybe that's what we are preparing for??? However, to flourish, democracy surely depends upon choice. Already we get the lament on the doorstep, "You're all the same".......how will this play? How will this help to reinvigorate democracy? Instead, methinks the velvet glove of inclusivity hides the iron fist of the ultimately promised Brown Stalinist tendencies. Why, Tories are clearly floundering, the only real moral opposition lies within our party, so lets pull us in and ultimately neutralise us.



No this has little to do with inclusivity and a whole lot more to do with Brown attempting to ensuring his and Labour's reign go on for time immemorial..............