Let’s lose more beds

Published: 12th December, 2010

• WHO are these people who keep opposing the closure of beds in mental hospitals (Has no one the courage to oppose these health cuts? November 5)? They have obviously never been forced into one.   

If they have empty beds, psychiatrists are always keen to fill them up by “sectioning” people who certainly don’t want to be there. I should know, it has often been my misfortune.  

If they close 100 beds then they will not need the psychiatrists who fill them up, and for people like me there will be less chance that we will be locked up against our wishes. As far as I am concerned, the more beds they close the better. They will be able to save on buildings and staff and there will not be as many people around to hassle me and force me to take medicines I don’t want.  

Richard Arthur, chairman of Islington and Camden NHS Foundation Trust, seems to me to be a man who understands service users really well and his business plan has my full support.
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• IT seems to have taken Islington Borough User Group (iBUG) a long time to respond to the many criticisms in your pages (Benefits cuts worse than the loss of mental health beds, December 3). One could be forgiven for thinking that the delay has been in agreeing with the publicity departments of Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Islington a reply which will show them all in the best light.  

The last line of their letter is almost a direct quote from the trust’s medical director, Dr Sylvia Tang. As has been well recorded, one of the problems is that this trust is often not able to find a bed locally for people with mental ill-health.

Peter Jones, Shirley Scott-Norton and the other directors mistakenly contend the cuts will be offset by a greater investment in community services. The trust readily admits that the loss of more than 100 in-patient beds will only provide some £3million of the £20million it claims it needs to save over the next three years. A reduction in community services will inevitably follow to save more money.  

Crisis houses and day centres are very valuable, but it seems likely that, to meet the target, there will be fewer of these in future and that iBUG’s hopes are unrealistic.
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• ALTHOUGH I have used mental health services in Islington for many years, I have never joined iBUG. Peter Jones’s letter assures me that I am right.   

iBUG reveals itself as being nothing more than a mouthpiece for NHS Islington and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, which fund it.
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