Share review of Community Services - Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

Community Services - Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust 2024-04-18 Person 1 5 0

First it is very hard as there is no way of ever contacting the service, to reply to the sms you have a short amount of time to do so then it times out and you can only send 1 response. Only contact number you are given is Samaritans or 999 which is no good if I only need to contact you to change appointment time. Once my gps practice manager managed to contact the service for me but informed me she could not give out your number to patients. Often no time slots given so waiting for phone to ring which is hard when working etc. numerous times I wasn’t contacted and my appointments were missed which is upsetting when feeling anxious anyway about speaking with someone and then not receiving the appointment. The telephone calls were often 5 minutes of asking how life was and if medication needed changing. Took over a week for Darians prescriber colleague to prescribe citalopram- it was my pharmacist at my gp who chased this for me and eventually got me the medication. Counselling I received was 6 weeks of 20 minute phone calls which was disappointing as thought the nhs would offer more than this but was told if I wanted any more would need to pay privately. The couples counselling I was given the information on was in Kent so a 3 hour round trip each time i would go to therapy so clearly inappropriate! Overall the community mental health service has been as disappointing as the postnatal mental health service I received in 2021. I have been a qualified nurse for 12 years proudly working for the nhs so understand the hardship the nhs faces and the pressures staff and services are under but feel failed once again when my mental health has suffered since having children.

To give out a contact number for your service so patients can rearrange appointments if needed. To remember to phone patients if they have a booked appointment. For your nurses to not have open social media accounts as this is unprofessional and I would say a high risk for your staff working with patients with mental health conditions.