A merger means loss

Published: 13 October, 2011

• I WOULD strongly echo Sir Torquil Norman’s concerns about the proposed merger of four mental health centres (New Journal, October 6) and also to question how Labour has gone about developing its proposals.

Mental health provision is such an important issue – the figures suggest that one in four people will suffer from such problems at some stage in their life.

With an aging population, conditions like dementia will increase.

And with no sign of an economic recovery and a continued downturn, we can expect an increase in other mental health conditions as well.

The plans should therefore be about being ready for expansion not for simply maintaining a service.

This does not seem to be recognised in Labour’s proposals.

Having visited centres like Jamestown Centre (now closed) and the Highgate Centre, I don’t believe the answer is a large impersonal centre.

The relationships between staff and service users as well as between service users themselves are vital.

We risk losing this with a single, large, centre.

The chances of users participating in the running of a centre, which can be empowering, is also harder without small human-scale centres.

This is not to say that we don’t need change – I am sure we could improve the provision currently offered; but this should involve an open consultation that really involves carers, service users and other experts in designing a service.

Instead Labour offers just one alternative in this proposed Greenwood site.

I am concerned that this proposal is overly motivated by the intended sale of assets, as Labour proposes, which they say is in order to renovate school buildings and carry out housing repairs.

This is surprisingly like the sell-offs in housing which Labour so vociferously opposed in the 2010 election campaign.

We should seek to retain these assets and look to find cost-effective means of repairing school buildings and housing.

The current proposals are short-sighted.

Once we have sold off the family silver we will struggle to buy it back when we need it.

CLLR MAYA DE SOUZA
Green Party
Highgate ward