So after quite a bit of prompting on my part I finally received a copy of the discharge letter that was sent to my GP. I had asked that this stated that they had received a copy of my care plan from the GP as I wanted this in writing as I couldn’t take their word for it that it had been uploaded to the system. Thankfully the letter did include this and I am grateful for that however I have quite a few issues with the content and accuracy of the letter .
I was originally referred to MH services by my GP last November during a crisis and had been seeing a care coordinator monthly since then. I came out of crisis around Christmas time and was actually fairly stable until relapse in early March.
However the letter doesn’t distinguish between the 2 separate episodes and muddles the details of both into one to somehow imply that I had one crisis in November and was provided with support after that and therefore they are totally justified in discharging me now.
I thought it would be useful to blog about this before writing my complaint as it helps to rationally challenge the points that I think are incorrect and maybe get some of the emotion out before putting pen to paper. I am also hoping that I can encourage others to speak up about their care and I am pleased that I am waiting until now (in a much more stable place) before challenging some of the care that I received.
The first sentence of the letter states that I was referred to CMHT by the mental health liaison at Accident and Emergency last November. This isn’t true as I was referred there by my GP because I waited last November in Accident and Emergency for over 4 hours and no one saw me. I attended Accident and Emergency this March and was seen by the MH liaison but there is no mention of this and that puzzles me and I think there is more behind this error.
The letter mentions that during the period between November last year & March this year I was seen by the CMHT and by HTT. The letter combines these 2 and this is confusing as last November when I asked to be referred to HTT I wasn’t and this letter implies that I did receive that help when in fact I was only referred to HTT during the crisis in March this year. By combining the 2 episodes in one I feel that professionals are trying to lessen my condition and the impact it has on my life. Are they trying to justify the very quick discharge by not referring to a crisis this March?
My care coordinator then makes what I presume is a typo by stating that ‘Mrs Copley reported that she is back to work on increased hours and attending on a daily basis to enable her (to) manage her workload’. I think this should read ‘Mrs Copley reported that she is back to work on decreased hours and attending on a daily basis to enable her to manage her workload’. Whilst I appreciate that mistakes can be made it is vital that attention is paid to detail which is supposedly something the service user has said as I obviously didn’t say that and my GP might be confused or wonder why this is different to what I had told her. Paranoia plays a huge part in my experience of Mental Illness and so mistakes like this which may seem small actually add to my paranoia.
The letter itself was disjointed and it wasn’t very well written at all and I think this gives the impression that the care coordinator is obviously under huge time pressure and that important letters about discharge of bipolar patients from the mental health system are obviously not given the time they deserve or need.
All I can say is that if I wrote a letter of this quality and with mistakes like this in my job I would be pulled up about it therefore I can’t understand why mental health care should have a different set of rules.
I plan to reply to this letter addressing my concerns with it and expressing concern about some of the other aspects of my care but I will ensure that I highlight the good examples of care as well.
Thanks for reading and I would welcome any comments!