Rethink Mental Illness Manchester Group

Lots of events on at the moment. This one from NHS Manchester about an event that has been rearranged from 16th February to 3rd March: Dear Colleagues, Service Users and Carers Further to our first meeting which was held on 25th October at the Town Hall, we are now holding are second meeting this time at our offices at Parkway M2.1 (Boardroom) (map attached) on 3rd March from 14:30 - 16:30. We have arranged this meeting so that we can listen to your views about the development of the integrated Primary Care Mental Health Service in Manchester, as well as agree a way forward of directly involving users and carers in our decision making processes in the future. Refreshments will be available on the day, also please note that there is limited visitor parking at Parkway. If you would like to park here you must book in advance. Alternatively there are a number of buses from the city centre that stop outside, including the 101, 104, 105 and 109. If you park on surrounding streets please be c...

I'm slightly behind the times with this one, which was released over a week ago on 2nd February. But here it is. I don't claim to have read it and am going to cheat and use the government's own summary to describe it: "No health without mental health: a cross-Government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages represents a major step forward in mainstreaming mental health and supporting the Government's important aim of achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health. It has been produced in collaboration with many of the Department's partner organisations. It will enable more decisions about people's mental health to be taken locally, and stresses the interconnections between mental health, housing, employment, and the criminal justice system. Supporting documents including an action plan for expanding talking therapies have also been published." You can download the full document from the Department of Health's website...

Just received details of an event you might be interested in. The event, which is free and open to everyone, is part of a series called 'Cafe Scientifique' which aims to foster a dialogue between scientists and the community. The one coming up is called 'Understanding Psychosis'. A professor of clinical psychology will give a short presentation, and then open up the floor for questions from the audience. Date:February 23rd 2011 Time: 6 pm Where: Krobar on Oxford road, corner of Dover street (note - NOT the one near the BBC but the one 10 minutes walk south) Title: Understanding psychosis Speaker: Tony Morrison What is this about? Many people have unusual experiences and beliefs, such as hearing voices, seeing visions or believing that others are trying to harm or control them or put thoughts into their head. Some people are troubled by such experiences; others are not. Can we understand why these experiences occur, why they are associated with distress and disability fo...

I've just skim read the Budget Proposals for Manchester City Council's Adults' Directorate , for 2011 / 12. Richard Leese, Leader of the Council, is quite clear that there will be some very, very hard cuts. With planned savings of £109m there's no way there wouldn't be. I'm very wary of drawing conclusions from a quick read of something, but here are the important bits that I could find relating to the provision of mental health services: Rates for mental health provision: projected saving in 2011/12 is £600,000; projected saving in 2012/13 is £600,000 - making a total projected saving over the next two years of £1.2 million. Ouch. Individual budgets (IBs)propose to restrict the cash IB offer, which will make efficiencies of £1.466m. Create an independent review team to promote independence and reduce dependency with savings identified as up to £1.92m. The budget settlement from central government reduces the Supporting People grant by 35% equating to a £12.6m r...

We're fortunate to have some fantastic third sector / civil society mental health organisations here in Manchester. One of these - YASP - which works with young people experiencing mental health problems, has just released a report about the huge challenges that young people accessing YASP services face. As well as drawing out the many difficulties that these young people including poverty, homelessness, debt and frequent harassment, young people talk about their difficult backgrounds including abuse, domestic violence and needing to seek asylum. Despite all of this, one of the biggest problem young people identify is loneliness. “It’s about lack of friends, lack of confidence, feeling singled out, paranoia about people, don’t know what people are thinking or thinking you are weird” – YASP Service User. “I have had no contact with my family in Angola and at first I was terribly homesick, and I still think a lot about things that happened to me in the past, but with the support and ...

Couple of events coming up in the North West that you might be interested in: February 18th service user focus group in Preston on personal health budgets (PHB). You don't need to know anything about PHBs to participate as the organisers will be explaining, so it's also an opportunity to learn about them. For an information sheet email Karen Machin or text 07979 252 526. 18th March ROLEcamp What’s it all about? Outcomes . The change created by an intervention. Services and service commissioners are measuring the effectiveness of their services by looking at outcomes. We, the ROLE network, believe those outcomes should be selected by service users/survivors and carers. "No decision about me without me." This event asks what outcomes do we want? And how will we know if services have provided those outcomes? Who should attend? This event is for people in the North West of England who have a personal lived experience and involvement in mental health. You might call you...

While we all know that this is a tough economic climate, we want to make sure people affected by severe mental illness are not unjustly affected by cuts to mental health spending and services. Councils and health trusts are about to sign off their budgets. In order to build up a national picture of cuts to spending on mental health services, Rethink needs your help. We need volunteers to help us track what is happening across the Greater Manchester area. Please let us know what’s happening near you, by finding out what your council and local health trust’s new spending plans are for mental health. You can find out by: Checking your council and Primary Care Trust’s websites to see if information is readily available Calling your local council and ask them how you find out Asking your local PCT's Patient Advice Liaison Services (PALs) or Patient and Public Involvement team - for advice on how to find out about NHS plans for mental health in your area. If you have any information just...