Puzzled over mental health care

Although obviously in awe of what Pam Jenkinson and the Wokingham Crisis House provides and the variety of folk they help – the homeless and the mentally ill – I am however slightly puzzled.

In several earlier letters, Ms Jenkinson has proposed the abolition of all NHS services/treatments for the mentally ill, many of whom do find themselves homeless. Instead, she appears to favour voluntary services and yet admits to ‘scraping the pot to find enough money to pay privately when a mentally-ill person can’t get immediate NHS treatment”.

If Wokingham Crisis House is ‘scraping the pot’ while NHS mental health services and treatments are, however inadequate, available (crisis treatments or less critical treatments). These cannot provide the criss care that is needed now, hence having to pay for individuals’ immediate private crisis care, as her latest letter admitted.

How will/can the Wokingham Crisis House and its peers provide what would be needed if no NHS mental health care was on offer?

There is also the ethical question of should groups like the Wokingham Crisis House spend their limited financial resources on providing private and very expensive crisis mental health care, hence encouraging expensive private care, or should it use its limited resources to provide crisis care until NHS mental health crisis care is provided, when it is not provided immediately for whatever reason. Paul Farmer, a long-term campaigner for more NHS mental health commissioning/ funding throughout Berkshire