Latest Letter to MP, who asked me to contact him if I had further need of him

Dear MP

Thank you for your reply to the copy of the email I sent to important person at local council. I know there were ongoing issues for 2 year's prior to my father going into residential care. These included misdiagnosis by a psychiatrist, lack of appropriate support from both mental health services and social services, which I believe led to his suicide attempt.

During this time and up until autumn of last year, my father was in a hell of a state and I know that you were aware of the impact this had on my mental health. I am grateful that my father was, eventually and with my constant fighting for his wellbeing to be given priority, placed in residential care and now seems to have a combination of psychiatric medications which have lifted his mood to a point where he is less miserable and more able to interact with people within the care home and myself and my daughter.

However, I am not satisfied that any lessons have been learnt by the MH Trust, who having showed me the report they did in regards to an investigation I pressed for..refused to let me have a copy.

My main concern now is that what we have are layers of bureaucracy (both within MH and Social Services) that cover themselves...rather than acknowledge the damage the lack of appropriate intervention, when needed, and lack of providing transparent and honest information, when requested, does not only to people in crisis but also to the trust that was building between patients and the people designated to provide care to them.

I think this is an on-going problem. I have requested information...and very specific information in regards to decisions made about both mine and my father's care (viz a vie Direct Payments agreements and Residential Care agreements made at panel level). Either the information has taken months to be provided or has not been provided at all. Which has led me to believe that either people have acted neglectfully or deliberately have avoided providing the information, that was sought.

I am sure you appreciate how frustrating this is for me. I am a person who needs to know why things are how they are and to be provided the truth...as does my father. In fact, my father becomes quite paranoid if he thinks information is being kept from him.

I am not sure that you can do anything to change this. However, as a government, I believe the party you represent can do alot to enforce changes within existing care services and I don't mean to the detriment of them but to get rid of the ludicrous levels of bureaucracy, the with-holding of significant information to patients and to make these services more transparent and responsive to patient needs.

For your information, I have not heard back from the important person at the local council, since I sent the last email to him and this is nothing new for me, when dealing with public services. I think it is a case of only responding if they have and/or are legally obliged to.

Yours sincerely

Mandy Lawrence