Dr Simon Belderbos 2018-04-17 Person 5 5 0

After almost 11 years of sporadic involvement as a patient with the Lancashire NHS Mental Health Service, Dr Simon Belderbos was the first and only clinician to actually listen to what I had to say. He was attentive, empathetic, totally professional, non-condescending, informative and easy to chat to. That is what our 3 meetings felt like, a friendly chat rather than a psychiatric evaluation. His attentiveness was evident in the letters he sent stating what we had discussed. He quoted information I had mentioned casually, not thinking it was relevant or that he would recall what I thought were trivial snippets of information about my daily life and struggles. If psychiatry was an Olympic Sport, he would certainly win Gold and if psychiatry was a category at the American Academy Awards, he would most certainly win the Oscar. Sadly my appointment with Dr Belderbos were for him to ascertain which area of the Mental Health Service would "suit me" the best. Having been involved with the service many, many times, his referral, I believe he thought was the best for my issues, was not required, I had been "down that road" on more than one occasion and it hadn't worked for me. So I declined engaging yet again with a service that hadn't worked for me 3 or 4 times previously. Dr Belderbos in one word:- AMAZING!