🧵A big part of trying to make the #RCOTCasson lecture bigger than ever was trying to get it outside of where it would normally be talked about.
I asked "It the Casson lecture being talked about on the BBC too ambitious?" @BBCNews@BBCWalesNews
It turns out that it was too ambitious, but with two days to go, let's have a look if there's anything that could hook the media in for a wider discussion.
Firstly lets get nationalistic - A Welshman, in Wales delivering the professions highlight lecture in honour of a Welsh doctor with record attendance on its bicentennial anniversary. @BBCNews@BBCWales
To get a bit more local, it's not just a Welshman, it's a Wrexham person and there's lots going on in Wrexham at the moment... @WalesOnline
Then there's the content. Firstly (and I don't think this is a big hook but who knows) there's how important relationships are and things in services can damage them.
As @DrChloeBeale wrote, sometimes it seems our systems are designed to harm. We pretend that what is on offer is the best people can get though, and this hurts staff (and patients)
In the review of the mental health act @WesselyS wrote about how staff make decisions based on fear rather than the best interests of patients. That damages relationships too.
News might be interested in how fear of raising concerns means staff have to tolerate seeing people being harmed. The @BBCNews wrote this a while back
My experience of raising concerns when I felt people were being harmed was getting absolutely ripped apart and silenced. That a decent personal interest story.
Also, there's loads of staff groups striking but we're only talking about pay and not conditions.
50% of jnr Drs experiencing extreme stress
Paramedics watching people die in 40 ambulance queues. 1/4 of OTs looking to quit in 5 years...
We need to think about making services people want to stay working in, not paying them a bit and hoping they tolerate it better.
13% of the NHS mental health workforce left last year.
22000 nurse left the NMC register.
We need to fix this and it isn't (just) more pay.
Staff are morally injured, frightened and frightened to talk about it.
We forget about the environment that's intolerable and focus on the individual.
That's a lot of people. Of those people, those with the probable mental disorder were those living in poverty who were unsure they could eat.
Is worry about not being able to eat a mental disorder? 😕
Further, self harm in children is rising. The risk of suicide increases significantly if you self harm.
Is the younger generation in greater danger of dying by their own hand than any previously?
Is there something in our society impacting on our children or should they just work on their resilience?
Our neoliberal society emphasises individualism and a response to the increasing gap between rich and poor is to tell people they are ill. We try to help then send people back to the environment that caused their difficulties.
And this is a choice. We don't have to live like this. I'd argue that some people won't survive us living like this and the biggest casualties will be our children.
This environment has to change. DMs open. Happy to talk more.
That's important because the community mental health teams I worked in 10 years ago were drowning in the demand THEN. With the workforce dropping, those who remained have done less with less.
The focus on child mental health is important too and it's good to hear them talking about the appalling waiting lists for desperate children and families google.com/amp/s/amp.theg…
It is #WorldMentalHealthDay with a focus on Mental Health being a universal human right.
If you're struggling, remember to ask for help.
When you ask for help, you'll be joining a fifth of all 16 year old girls in the country:
"16-year-old girls are most likely to be in contact with NHS mental health services - with 22.8% of the population (69,580) having been in contact with these services during 2021-22"
You'll also find a notional emergency going on with 1 in 5 mental health nurses vacancies unfilled in the NHS
Thanks to @BPDFFS @Girl_Interrupt_ and @HoppyPelican for pointing me at this. I don't understand it very well, but I'm going to spell out what I don't understand and what I'm wondering about...
The diagnosis of personality disorder has changed. There are no 'types' any more, just personality disorder mild/moderate/severe. This paper looked at whether you could use honos scores to measure that severity.
This is what a honos section on self harm looks like..
Second session kicks off with @BIG_SPD presidents @OliverDale10 and Julia Blazdell talking about where there were when No Longer a Diagnosis of Exclusion came out