Hold the front page

The following is a headline from today’s Daily Mail website:

Back to the hairdressers then… WAG Alex Curran gets caught in a downpour

Mrs Gerrard’s well-kept look got a soaking as she forgot her umbrella

I suppose it’s better than attacking benefit claimants.

A good news day?

Over here at Mental Patient Heights things carry on much the same. Most days I’m too depressed to do much. Occasionally, like today, I go for a walk through Hyde Park, but most days I just lie in bed. My next psychiatrist appointment is in the middle of September. By then I will probably be begging to be put on a mood stabilizer and antidepressant. My fear of drugs is now completely outweighed by my fear of ongoing severe depression from which I won’t recover.

Mental health wise it appears to be a rare good news day.

The News Scientist is reporting that, Killings by the mentally ill reach new low:

Killings by people with mental disorders in England and Wales have fallen by two-thirds in the past quarter century, and are now at historically low levels.

The finding, based on an analysis of official homicide statistics from 1946 to 2004, reveals that public concerns about increasing violence by mentally ill people are unfounded.

Most mental health professionals believed that rates had stayed constant for decades, and even declined as a proportion of all homicide – the conclusion of a 1999 report in The British Journal of Psychiatry analysing data from 1957 to 1995. Critics believed the act had been passed as a knee-jerk response to public fears.

But not only does the new analysis detect no recent increase in homicide by mentally ill people, it also contradicts the finding that rates have stayed constant.

Instead it found that homicides due to mental disorders peaked in 1973 at a rate of 0.245 per 100 000 people – equivalent to well over 100 homicides per year. The rate then declined, even though homicides that were not related to mental disorder continued to climb.

By 2000, homicides related to mental disorder had fallen by two-thirds to 0.07 per 100 000, remaining at those historically low levels until 2004, the last year for which data was analysed. Total homicides peaked at 1.5 per 100 000 in 2004.

The new findings could prove embarrassing to the British government.

The story is also covered by the BBC, which highlights the role community mental health services may have played in the reduction:

The team, led by Dr Matthew Large, who is in private practice in Sydney, Australia, said the fall was probably due to better mental health care.

Writing in the journal, they said: “The introduction and increasing use of antipsychotic medication, the greater awareness of the treatment of psychosis by primary care providers after deinstitutionalisation, and the creation of regional health authorities with responsibility for defined populations, may have all contributed to the observed decline in homicide since the 1970s. “

Mental health charities agreed with the conclusion.

A spokesman for the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health said: “These findings ring true for us.

“Community based mental health services have improved very considerably over the last 20-30 years.

“That’s shown by the fact there was virtually no care for people with severe and enduring mental health problems outside hospital, whereas now there are community mental health teams, outreach work and crisis teams to provide support and help.”

The BBC is also reporting, Suicide rate at record low level:

The suicide rate in England has continued to fall and is now at a record low, figures show.

A National Institute for Mental Health in England report reveals particular progress in cutting suicides among young men.

There were 145 suicides among mental health in-patients in 2005 compared with 157 in 2004.

The number of suicides among people in contact with mental health services also dropped, from 1,308 in 2004 to 1,277 in 2005.

However, the number of suicides in prison rose to 82 in 2007-08 from 71 in 2006-07.

Finally, as no doubt everyone has seen on TV news, Barry George has been found not guilty of Jill Dando’s murder.

Barry George’s initial conviction looked like a classic police fit-up of a vulnerable person. The police officers involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

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Not mental health related

Art of the Poster 1880-1918

For the benefit of a mental patient part 17

“Benefit shake-up ‘revolutionary’”, reports the BBC after a weekend of febrile speculation ahead of the publication of a welfare reform Green Paper.

I have just spent an hour or so reading through press reports online. What’s most striking is the lack of detail as to how existing Incapacity Benefit claimants will be migrated over to the new Employment and Support Allowance. Some press articles mention the year 2013 as the date Incapacity Benefit will be phased out. Despite the amount of column inches since Friday - when a draft of the Green Paper was leaked - I know very little I didn’t already know about changes to welfare benefits.

What is new is the idea of people on Jobseeker’s Allowance having to undertake compulsory work of the cleaning up litter variety. This seems to be vindictive and pointless. I’m all for giving people help in finding a job, but I don’t see the point of punishing them for being unemployed. They won’t after all be receiving the minimum wage. Why should they have to work for less than people in a job undertaking similar work?

I am holding out hope that I will be in the Employment and Support Allowance Support Group, those not required to undertake work-related activity. I don’t see how I could hold down a job or undertake freelance work. Over the three months that I have been keeping this blog I have been unable to keep to a simple schedule of spending an hour three times a week updating the site. Any type of regular work-like activity is beyond me, I’m either too depressed to get out of bed or else wrapped up in a world of anxiety, paranoia and the belief that people can hear my thoughts.

All that said, I have agreed to help out on a voluntary basis with a charity fundraising application (I used to work as a charity fundraiser). I offered my services last week during a couple of days when I was feeling better. I have been dreading it ever since, but I feel I should do something other than stay in the flat all day or just walk around the park. If at some point I am required to look for a job at least I will be able to claim that I did something useful while I was on benefits.

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Also noted

Mental health poll reveals stigma, reports the BBC.

Nine out of ten people with mental health problems in England say they are frequently stigmatised - often by those closest to them, a survey has found.

Strangers in shops or public transport were likely to be the most accepting, with family and neighbours more likely to treat them differently.

The poll, by charity Rethink, found discrimination also impacted on carers of people with mental illness.

The charity called for more government funding to fight the problem.

The story is also covered by the Daily Mail (which focuses on employment, as you might expect):
Stigma and discrimination of mental illness stops sufferers from applying for jobs.

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Not mental health related

Bandstand busking puts buskers onto London’s underused park bandstands.

Bonkers!

So I went to Bonkersfest, the South London arts festival celebrating madness, creativity and individuality. It was pleasant enough, with a drumming band creating atmosphere, a big top with comedians and stalls advocating alternative approaches to mental health. There was also a funfair which helped to give it a family friendly appeal.

I am generally against organised fun - I was dreading being accosted by someone exhorting me to enjoy myself - but it was nice strolling around seeing mentals relaxed and happy in the Summer sunshine. That said, sections of the crowd - especially people dancing to the drumming band - looked suspiciously like a group of mental nurses letting their hair down.

It was a bit of a struggle motivating myself to go. I have lapsed back into low level depression and lethargy. I had hoped I’d turned a corner as I’d had a week being relatively symptom free - just a brief episode of thought broadcast, the belief that people can hear my thoughts. However things just carry on the same.

Bonkerfest sign

The Big top

London Autistic Rights Movement

The crowd

Drumming band

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Also noted

Scan “detects obsessive disorder”, report the BBC.

Dr Samuel Chamberlain, who led the study, said: “Impaired function in brain areas controlling flexible behaviour probably predisposes people to developing the compulsive rigid symptoms that are characteristic of OCD.

“This study shows that these brain changes run in families, and represent a candidate vulnerability factor.”

He said that current method of diagnosing the condition could be supplemented by the scan.

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Not mental health related

The BBC proms season is well underway. I’m attending one concert this year, Prom 55 featuring Ravel, Debussy and - a personal favourite - Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. I’m planning to listen to a lot of concerts on Radio 3, as I type this one of the Folk Proms is on in the background.

I feel cheated

I’m just coming out of a week of severe depression in which I have done nothing but lie in bed chewing the duvet. The usual stuff: being dehydrated but lacking the motivation to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water, every minute seeming to last hours with even the sound of the clock ticking being painful, the belief that the depression will never end and that suicide is the only way out.

I feel cheated. After several years of resisting more medication I finally relented recently and accepted that I need more drugs. But the consultant didn’t want to prescribe a mood stabilizer until she saw how I get on with the anti-psychotic amisulpride. I have been slowly increasing the dosage over a period of a few weeks and I’m now almost at the level where miraculous results might be expected. I do feel less angry and less dysphoric, but that might just be the way the moods are cycling rather than the effect of the drug. It’s a game of wait and see.

It looks to be shaping up to be another wet Summer. This doesn’t help. A couple of Summer’s ago, when it was pleasantly warm and sunny, I would get the tube down to St James’s Park even on days when I was depressed and unmotivated to go for a walk. Just sitting in the sun and feeding the squirrels made me feel better. Now I just sit at the desk and watch the rain or lie on the bed and listen to the rain. In Winter I love being cosy indoors with the sound of the wind and rain outside, but for Summer I have different expectations. I need to be outdoors with the sun on my skin, preferably with it warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt. I like the sense of ease and relaxation that Summer sun brings, the feeling of days being endless and unhurried. The pace of life seems slower and this suits a mental.

And then there’s the diet. I’m back on the weight loss diet in earnest, the belief being that it’s easier to lose weight in Summer ie. the heat makes you less hungry (and other truths/myths). I suppose the plus side of the wet weather is that I’m not having to endure days of sweat-stained fatso suffering, I’m not being bullied by the heat.

The BBC Proms season starts next week which means I go through the annual tug of war: loving the music, loathing the culture. Having concerts to listen to on Radio 3 will give my days a bit more structure. When I’m semi-depressed (my default setting) I like to listen to classical music, though when I’m full on depressed I find listening to music painful. I hope to attend a couple of concerts, money and health permitting. I can sit there snarling at the British upper middle-class at play. I’ll look forward to that.
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Also noted

Psychiatry on the couch: psychiatry within the NHS is being devalued just at a time when exciting discoveries are being made, says Dr Paul Keedwell in The Guardian.

However, anti-psychiatry is still alive and kicking, and, I believe, leading to decreased access to medical aspects of care. Rufus May, the latest antipsychiatry incarnation, was the subject of a recent Channel 4 documentary featuring Ruth, a young doctor with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder who was hearing voices. On this programme May encouraged her to stop medication that had been prescribed for her by a psychiatrist. Instead he used an unproven strategy of relating the content of her voices to childhood experiences. Although I accept that some views are ‘balancing’ rather than ‘balanced’, the amount of airtime that views such as this are given is worrying.

The article goes on to say:

Psychiatrists need to get smarter. They need to promote their ‘unique selling points’ within the NHS. We need more psychiatrists, not less. We need more research, not less. We need better quality inpatient care, with less pressure on beds, and more trained nurses with more time on their hands to speak to patients. All patients should have access to a psychiatrist if that is what they want, as is the case in the private sector. Also, psychiatrists should press for all psychology undergraduate courses to include some neuroscience and genetics in their curricula.

Challenge to the ‘team’ ethic, also in The Guardian.

An article in the British Journal of Psychiatry has questioned whether the broad-based team approach is putting patients at risk. In response some people vigorously defend the multi-disciplinary team.

One service user and psychologist, Liz Miller, suggests the article represents a “biological bite-back”, and is a response to the successes of the service-user movement, which has challenged the authority of psychiatrists. “The biological model [of care] is based around treatment,” she says. “I am not saying it doesn’t have a place, but the idea that psychiatrists somehow have a deeper understanding of mental illness is bollocks.”

Bollocks? I do think psychiatrists have a deeper understanding of mental illness by virtue of the fact that it is an illness and doctors diagnose and treat illnesses. But then I’m resolutely a patient, not a service user.

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Not mental health related

The Travels of Franz Kafka , a website that chronicles the many places and social interactions of Kafka. A photographic journal collection of his life as he traveled.

Whitstable

Regular readers of this blog are in for a shock: I actually managed to go somewhere and do something!

Last Thursday afternoon I travelled down to Whitstable on the Kent coast and stayed overnight. I spent Friday exploring the shoreline, eating seafood and lying on my back listening to the sea.

I managed to pull off this extraordinary feat through a friend giving me the loan of his girlfriend for a couple of days. Ruth agreed to accompany me and undertake general hand holding duties. She did very well, though she didn’t quite get the hang of it at first: she had the idea that we’d, “pop down to Victoria”, “hop onto a train” and “mooch around and look for somewhere quirky to stay”.

I had to explain that I don’t pop anywhere, certainly can’t hop and would never dream of mooching. Everything I do has to be meticulously planned in order to reduce anxiety. My preference would be to be accompanied at all times by a couple of guys from health and safety wearing those florescent yellow jackets and carrying clipboards. I’d like risk assessments carried out on every activity I perform.

Whitstable has lots of quaint and quirky hotels and B&Bs, but unfortunately I don’t do quaint and quirky. I do bland and predictable so we stayed at the Premier Inn. It’s true that its location wasn’t exactly scenic - it appeared to be on the edge of an industrial estate - but it was very standardized and safe.

The trip was marred slightly by the fact that on Thursday night I couldn’t sleep - despite having taken olanzapine, amisulpride, valium and zopilcone. The problem started while I was reading Private Eye’s description of Dr Raj Persaud as suffering from, “cuttus pastus plagiarensis (or Ripov’s Syndrome as it is sometimes known)”. I just couldn’t stop laughing. I then lay awake for several hours, finally dropping off while reading the hotel’s bible. In my opinion the bible isn’t of much use, but it does help you drop off to sleep. I like Revelations, which is the biblical equivalent of a Hollywood disaster movie.

Friday was just perfect. I wandered around the harbour and found a spot on the beach to watch the tide come in. Ruth went shopping. This surprised me as Whitstable’s main shopping street is only a few hundred yards long. Nevertheless she managed to shop away quite happily for several hours. I had a quick look in the gift shops later on and bought a few postcards to send. I had amazing cod and chips in a seafront restaurant.

As a holiday - albeit for just one night - it worked: I have returned to London feeling less jaded. I have gone back to going for walks through Hyde Park and I have managed to crack on with the task of “deep cleaning” the flat.

That said I’m left feeling sad that I can’t go away more. I don’t have the money, but also I don’t have the emotional resilience to handle changes to routine. More than ever in the past few days I have been wishing that I wasn’t a mental.

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Also noted

The gain in Spain means looking on the sunny side: Clare Allan writes in the Guardian about going on holiday.

Fear of change is a far more powerful deterrent. Many people with mental health problems cling to the familiar; any change in routine can feel like a threat to survival.

Exactly.

Smoke ban for mental health units, reports the BBC.

I bet it’s going to be fun on mental health wards in the next few days.

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Not mental health related

Ten very rare clouds

Success!

Yesterday I managed to go to the launderette for the first time in over two months. I’m now wearing clean clothes and my duvet and sheets smell fresh. It may be a small thing but this has lifted my spirits.

Keen to build on this success I’ve just got a haircut and as well as paying my bills at the paypoint shop on the Earls Court Road. Being a poor person means I have metres for the gas and electric, so I pay a higher tariff. Something’s not quite right there, I keep thinking.

But I mustn’t grumble. I have gone a few days now without major problems with paranoia or believing people can hear my thoughts. The dysphoric mania has returned but it’s not too bad. I wasn’t able to update this site Monday or do much of any use but today I’m able to sit at the computer and I haven’t head butted it so far.

With regret I have to say that I have abandoned the idea of updating this site on a scheduled basis. The plan was to do Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It’s just not working. Although it only takes an hour or so to read through the mad news sources (at the top right of the page), this is more than I am able to manage regularly three times a week. I seem to have about two days a week when I’m able to read for about an hour and construct a few sentences - the problem is I don’t know which days these will be. I go for days at a time where I do nothing but stare at the ceiling or for days at a time where my thinking is completely chaotic. To summarize, I’m far too unwell to maintain a publishing schedule - even one that only involves monging around on the web, creating a few links and writing some sarcastic comments. So from here on this site will probably be updated a couple of times a week, I just can’t say on which days.

My mood remains highly volatile. I’m reducing the amount of olanzapine I take with a view to giving it up as the dose of amisulpride increases. This could explain my erratic tearfulness. When I stopped olanzapine before I became very tearful as well as experiencing an odd mood of laughing and crying at the same time. I have been taking olanzapine for six years with only brief breaks. It’s very likely I’m experiencing withdrawal symptoms. I’m alarmed about what will happen when I stop it completely.

To complicate matters further I am having mid-life crisis type thoughts. I have been making lists to try and work out what I can do to make myself feel better about my life situation. I have come up with a plan for how I could turn things around within a year. The top goal is to lose weight, following on from that is to attempt to socialize more and to be better educated. I’m now looking at Open University courses in earnest, but also thinking about how I can educate myself. I like the idea of being an autodidact and it’s made easier by the web. Essentially I’m a self-taught web designer. I’m wondering if I can be self-taught in poetry - one of my chief interests. I know I should probably learn something practical - like PC repair and maintenance - it’s just that I have absolutely no motivation to do that. I have very little motivation to do anything except lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. If I’m going to attempt to do anything it might as well be something that sparks my imagination; something that makes me want to live.

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Also noted

A work culture not a welfare culture, trumpets a press release from the Department for Work and Pensions published today.

Freedom of choice will be central to radical welfare reform plans, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell said today.

James Purnell outlined his vision for the future of the welfare system, devolving power, and opening the door for local providers to offer their own solutions to unemployment.

Mr Purnell set out a radical approach to developing employment schemes. He said the Government recognised one of the strengths of local providers is the potential to develop new solutions to existing problems.

Under the new “right to bid” process every serious idea will be properly evaluated, by a DWP commissioning team, who will report to the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary.

There’s much talk of radical reform, but Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell doesn’t manage to get the word “slashing” in there - as in, “slashing the amount spent on benefits”. No discussion of benefits is complete without using the word slashing, here at Mental Patient Heights we feel that James has rather let the side down.

Never mind, he gets to talk about radical reform in the Daily Mail and the Financial Times gets all giddy thinking about how much money private companies are going to make from welfare-to-work schemes:

The “open invitation” to new ideas extends across welfare provision, including proposing welfare to work schemes that would pay private and voluntary sector service providers from the government savings made from finding jobs for the unemployed. “I’m not ruling anything out,” said Mr Purnell.

The measure is a further sign that Britain is willing to open up the “multi-billion pound” welfare-to-work market for private and voluntary providers envisaged in the Freud report, an independent examination of welfare reform.

It’s good to hear that James isn’t ruling anything out. I wonder if he’s considered providing a welfare system that meets the needs of disabled people?

Controversial diet drug approved, reports the BBC.

Evidence suggested one in 10 people might develop mental side-effects including low mood and depression, anxiety, irritability, nervousness and sleep disorders.

However, taking it can also lead to weight loss, but also improve general health, lowering blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.

Dr David Haslam, the clinical director of the National Obesity Forum, said that he welcomed its approval for NHS use, and predicted that it would be prescribed to many patients.

He said: “We can be absolutely reassured that they have looked closely at the evidence and made an appropriate decision.

“This is a very good drug, and there are very many people who have tried everything else, including other drugs, with little success, who might benefit from it.”

But Professor Alan Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty for Public Health, said: “Whilst these drugs may be right for some patients, they are not the long-term solution and may have potentially serious side-effects.

“Ultimately the answer has to be: eat a little less and move a little more.”

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Not mental health related

Vector Portraits 1989-1997. Photographs made while travelling 50 to 70 mph in Los Angeles and other parts of the Southwestern United States.

Friendly alien

I have finally managed to convince myself that I should try more drugs. I had an appointment yesterday with the consultant and based on my new found willingness to start pill gobbling I expected to come away with armfuls of mood stabilizers and antidepressants. However in a shock development the consultant said she was reluctant to prescribe more medication at the moment and that she wanted to see how I get on with the anti-psychotic amisulpride.

I believe that the consultant’s thinking relates to my diagnosis. It’s now, “probably schizoaffective disorder”, for those of you who don’t know that’s a combination of the symptoms of schizophrenia and manic depression. I think she wants to see how things shape up on a higher dose of this anti-psychotic. I was never able to tolerate a higher dose of olanzapine due to sedation.

The schizoaffective diagnosis has come along because I have started to experience thought broadcast, the belief that people can hear my thoughts. However I think I already had some of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and have done so since my early 20s. I have this odd need for isolation and social apartness. Notoriously, my idea of an intimate relationship is to have a twenty minute chat every month or so. I manage to get along with just a handful of close friends. I’m sure most people would think I’m a bit weird, though I like to see myself as some kind of friendly alien. Of course being unsocial has made some aspects of life difficult, especially work. And symptoms like paranoia have repeatedly sabotaged my attempts to get an education.

The consultant appointment cheered me up as they almost always do. I know many people don’t like psychiatrists but as I’ve said before I generally get on well with them. I’m convinced that a couple of crack consultants, armed with some graphs and pie-charts, could sort out most of my problems in no time at all. I think I need a rigorously scientific , clinical approach: this would enable me to get to grips with all these messy emotions cluttering up my life.

Unfortunately the emotions are getting in the way a bit at the moment. They are extremely volatile. While I was happily joking with the consultant, twenty minutes earlier on the bus I was struggling not to cry. The risk of crying in public is ever present, essentially it’s there every time I leave the flat.

I think I have a case of the old low self-esteem. I have been encouraging a couple of people I know to go to college, but my going to college is completely out of the question. I just know that my paranoia would go into overdrive in a crowded environment. And it’s bad enough thinking that people can hear my thoughts when sitting on a bus. How would I cope in a classroom?

I have got to the point where I’m having to measure success in very small increments. Yesterday’s major achievement - apart from not crying on the bus - was to return the DVD to the library. It took me two weeks to build up to this and the fine was £19.20 ie. much more than the value of the DVD. I wouldn’t mind but the film - Hannibal Rising - wasn’t that good. I’m not keen to see psychiatrists knocked - well, apart from that smug clown Raj Persaud (who has just been suspended from practising for three months for being a word thief).

My ambition in life now is to successfully complete a mission to the launderette and to get a haircut. If I can scale these heights of achievement I would like to start regularly going for walks through Hyde Park again. From there I may even progress to start riding my bike.

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Also noted

Many hospitals are failing to meet needs of panic sufferers, reports the Mental Health Foundation.

“The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for treating panic attacks are obviously not always being followed,” said Nicky Lidbetter, Chief Executive of the National Phobics Society (NPS). “A&E is often the first port of call for a panic attack sufferer, as they sometimes feel they can’t breathe or are having a heart attack. We know that A&E departments are very busy and under resourced, but it is essential that staff get it right because the standard of care and advice offered in accident and emergency can impact on the severity and duration of future attacks.”

Nicky Lidbetter continues, “The National Phobics Society has found that the focus in A&E departments is very much on physical health, and often there is a lack of professional skills in dealing with mental health issues. It is inappropriate for a panic attack sufferer to wait for long periods of time in a crowded waiting room, only to then be sent home without treatment or advice – and this is an all too common occurrence.”

My experience of panic attacks is having them on the tube. I am now unable to go on the deep underground lines like the Victoria or Piccadilly. However despite having a number of attacks it never occurred to me to call an ambulance or go to A&E. I guess that I was lucky in that I realised I was experiencing a panic attack and that what I needed was calm. Obviously you wouldn’t get that in an A&E department.

Medical News Today reports, Being Fat In Today’s World Invites Social Discrimination.

Health care providers’ efforts to convince overweight patients to lose weight are largely unsuccessful, Komesaroff believes, possibly because they do not understand the key issues that obese people face.

“The experience of being obese is often painful,” he said. “Many obese people have major social and psychological issues that doctors and public health policies [often] do not address.”

Nearly 50 percent of the participants (37 of 76) described poor mental and emotional health, including depression, related to their overweight, study data showed. Nearly all (72 of 76) said they experienced humiliation and discrimination regarding their weight, either in childhood or as adults. Twenty participants - more than 25 percent - regularly tried to lose weight quickly by going without eating anything for periods - essentially “starving” themselves.

While waddling down to the library, clutching the DVD in my great fat fingers, I had a couple of building site workers take the piss out of me. One of them did an impression of a roly poly type walk as I went passed, the other laughed and then puffed out his cheeks. I was surprisingly cool about it and remained unintimidated by these two intellectuals. But then I’m back on the diet and just keep telling myself that if I lose two pounds per week I’ll be thin within a year.

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Not mental health related

New York black and white photos

For the benefit of a mental patient part 16

Benefits and Work are reporting that Stephen Timms, Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, appears to be distancing himself from the government’s welfare reform advisor David Freud.

A number of Benefits and Work members who complained about Freud’s inaccurate and harmful misrepresentations have received a letter from the Office of Stephen Timms, Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform.

The letter attempts to disown any responsibility for Freud’s now notorious Telegraph interview, claiming that “the contents of Mr Freud’s recent press articles were not prompted by research commissioned by the Government, and reflect his own views.”

The article lists the factual errors made by Freud in the Telegraph interview:

David Freud, an extremely wealthy former City banker, claimed in an interview with the Telegraph in February that “disability tests are done by people’s own GPs”, that 5-7% of incapacity claimants are working in the black economy and that two thirds of claimants should not be receiving incapacity benefit.

The first of these statements is simply wrong and the other two are contradicted by a wealth of the DWP’s own research findings.

If the government’s own advisor gets it so wrong it’s unsurprising that there are so many inaccurate media reports concerning welfare reform.

In campaigning mode, Benefits and Work questions the role of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in an upcoming welfare reform conference.

Child Poverty Action Group are prominent supporters of a £528 per ticket Welfare to Work Conference at which David Freud is one of the keynote speakers. Other speakers include the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, and Lesley Strathie, Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

CPAG’s logo appears alongside the DWP and Jobcentre Plus logos on all the publicity material for the conference, taking place on 25 and 26 June in Birmingham. In addition, the campaigning group are running a joint workshop with the DWP on child poverty.

I think it’s got to the stage where many people now question the independence of charities. The advice sector, for instance, is wholly dependent on government funding and could only manage a few mealy-mouthed words about commitments not being “followed through” when the government cut money for the disabled.

Mind Week this year was an anodyne non-campaign on debt, designed not to offend anyone. The other mental health charities are largely just as keen not to upset their paymasters.

As an old-timer I think I owe it to the younger madsters reading this site to point out that there was a time when charities were openly critical of government. That, of course, was before the critics all got well paid jobs with pensions.

Back in the 1980s - when we all had big hair and shoulder pads - things were far more confrontational and I think the world was all the better for it.

Now it’s down to private companies like Benefits and Work to do the campaigning. What strange times we live in.

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Also noted

Doctors “ignoring drugs warning”, reports the BBC.

The CSM considered research evidence for risperidone and olanzapine - two widely sold drugs and usually used for conditions such as schizophrenia - sending an urgent message to GPs four years ago.

“Evidence reviewed by the Committee on Safety of Medicines indicates an increased risk of stroke which particularly applies when these drugs are used by elderly people with dementia,” the CSM said.

It added: “The Committee has advised that risperidone or olanzapine should not be used for the treatment of behavioural symptoms of dementia.”

The File on Four programme this report is taken from is available in podcast form.

Also from the BBC, Nurses to be rated on compassion

Nurses are to be rated according to the levels of care and empathy they give to patients under government plans.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson told the Guardian newspaper that he wants the performance of every nursing team in England to be scored.

He suggested the results, compiled by regulators using patient surveys, could be displayed on an official website.

But he ruled out rating individual nurses and also said it would not affect pay.

Perhaps they could rate individual nurses “cuddle factor” and display the performance results on their name badges like the staff in McDonalds. Just a thought.

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Not mental health related

New York City waferfalls

Repetition

I am in severe danger of repeating myself here as I yet again report that things are pretty grim. However, it’s a quiet day for mental health stories so I may as well write about myself.

The thought broadcast - believing people can hear what I’m thinking - is back. It’s not as bad as it was, it’s more of a nagging doubt than an absolute conviction, but it’s still very difficult to deal with.

I’m completely unmotivated to do anything, especially if it involves leaving the flat. I desperately need to go to the launderette but I’m not sure if I can face it.

I received a copy of the letter the consultant sent to my GP. It lists my symptoms but it doesn’t encapsulate the consequences, you don’t get a sense of how difficult I find daily living. It’s such a struggle just to do basic things like keeping the flat clean and shopping. Shopping is especially difficult at the moment as I have severe problems with paranoia and become convinced when entering a supermarket that the guards are following me. My constant looking around, especially at people behind me, attracts attention and this doesn’t help.

If all this weren’t enough, I’m also having mid-life crisis type thoughts about being so unaccomplished. Being a mental patient on benefits is not much to feel pleased about. I have thought about doing something like an Open University course, something I could list as an achievement.

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Also noted

The impact of polyclinics on mental health care is unproven and potentially damaging, the Mental Health Foundation warns.

People experiencing mental health problems, for whom a GP is usually the first port of call, account for a 1/3 of GPs’ consultation time.

90% of people with mental health problems receive all their treatment from primary care services.

There is an urgent need to examine how the proposed shift away from GP surgeries to much larger polyclinics will impact on the primary care of these patients, says the Foundation. Of particular concern is how the loss of the local ‘family GP’ will impact on patients’ willingness to present with mental health symptoms.

Of course the experience of speaking to family GPs about mental health issues is not quite as heartwarming as the Mental Health Foundation suggests.

“Mental illness is petrifying”, reports Psychminded

Day-to-day life as an inpatient on a psychiatric unit is being documented on an internet blog by a woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Mandy Lawrence, aged 45, was admitted into a six-bed NHS psychiatric unit in Bedfordshire on Friday last week and is writing about her experience.

The blog is believed to be the first by a patient while an inpatient on a mental health unit.

It’s worth noting that There and back has also been blogging while being an inpatient.

Profile: Dr Raj Persaud, by the BBC.

The TV psychiatrist and alleged word thief has nine degrees! To have put all that effort in and then get caught with your fingers in the till - terrible.

“Hunger hormone” depression link, reports the BBC.

High levels of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin have an antidepressant effect, US researchers claim.

He said the results made sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as hunter-gatherers may have had a survival advantage in remaining calm and collected in times of hunger in order for them to successfully find food.

This is all very well, except I’m not a hunter gatherer - unless that includes foraging trips to the Earls Court Road.

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Not mental health related

American gothic on Flickr