Stephen Fry asks 2.2 million Twitter followers to protest plan to axe crisis mental health service
Stephen Fry joined Jon Snow and Susie Orbach in speaking out in the hope of persuading Leeds council to reconsider axing its unique crisis counselling service, which has been providing emergency counselling to thousands of desperate Leeds residents for over twenty years, winning council awards just last year.
Fry tweeted a message of support for the campaign to his 2.2 million Twitter followers, saying, “Leeds’ unique crisis counselling service is first for the chop. Don’t let it go quietly, it saves lives. http://bit.ly/dJJhs2 #mentalhealth”. Before his intervention, the campaign website had received 2,500 hits. Please see hit counter on the site for current total.
A former service user of threatened Leeds Crisis Centre, spoke out: “I had never had any kind of mental illness, didn’t know much about depression and wasn’t really aware that anxiety or psychosis existed. I never thought I was the ‘type’ to get depression. But I had unusually severe post-natal depression after the birth of my second child and planned suicide one sleepless night by jumping up on the roof of my house, ending up spending two months in a psychiatric mother and baby unit. In the months leading up to my hospitalization as I was finding it increasingly difficult to cope, the Leeds Crisis Centre’s staff members were extremely supportive, and the fact that I was able to access counselling within twenty-four hours of making an initial phone-call was particularly helpful. I will always be especially grateful to Leeds Crisis Centre for helping our family through this difficult time, and really can’t recommend this service highly enough.”
Despite the service offering life-saving support of this kind to thousands who would otherwise remain on waiting lists, the council is currently considering only the option of complete closure of the service. Councillor Yeadon, lead for social care, describes the service as duplicating NHS and voluntary sector provision and talks optimistically of considerable investment in similar services. The reality is that the NHS offers “self help literature” and brief “CBT” therapy from non-counselling qualified staff through its “IAPT” services, whilst other counselling services already have months-long waiting lists and are facing huge cuts of their own. An “IAPT” professional posted a blog on the website confirming that currently, his service refers its most vulnerable clients to the Crisis Centre.
The campaign aims to stop the council axing the service without any consultation with service users, GPs and others who refer to the service and to persuade it to consider cost-saving options other than closure. The service currently has its own building in Headingley. Selling the building and moving the service to GP’s surgeries or other locations could save enough to run it for over a year. Local GPs are some of the most frequent referrers to the service and are angry at its planned closure, but do not yet have control of NHS budgets.
A current service user says: “i shudder to think how the suicide rate will be affected because if this was a year down the line i most certainly dont think i would now be sat here typing this. thankyou leeds crisis centre and my daughter thanks you too” (full message on the blog, link below)
The campaign has a blog with more information and messages of support from Councillors and MPs.
Editors’ notes:
The campaign can be contacted for more information/ interviewees via saveleedscrisiscentre@gmail.com. We are amateurs campaigning in our spare time from a laptop in our kitchen, but we try to answer emails as quickly as possible.
The full text of service users’ accounts above can be found on our blog at http://saveleedscrisiscentre.wordpress.com/. It also contains links to the relevant facts and figures about the service (http://bit.ly/hgSn9U) and the council proposals to close it (http://bit.ly/iboUAB). It has a page keeping track of “heroes and zeroes”: local politicians who support the service and those who support the cuts. Details of support from Jon Snow (via Twitter) and Susie Orbach (strongly worded message to the site) can be found on the blog.
The campaign calls for three things:
- A full consultation with current and former service users and with GPs and others who refer to the service.
- Consideration of cost-cutting options (such as shrinking or moving the service) other than complete closure, which is all that is being considered at the moment.
- The local NHS Trust (PCT) to put funding into a service which is used extensively by local GPs.
You can follow the campaign on Twitter on @saveleedscrisis.
This is an entirely grassroots, independent campaign with no affiliations to any political party, union or other organisation. The union, Unison, are also campaigning on this issue. Their Leeds office number is 0113 2458442 and branch@leedsunisonlg.org.uk.
Bob Howe, Branch Director – Leeds Samaritans, has said he is willing to speak to the media in support of this campaign.
I am a counsellor and psychotherapist who has lived and worked in Leeds for over 20 years. I also teach and supervise numerous student and graduate counsellors and therapists.
I am deeply shocked to hear of this threat to a crucial service in Leeds. My experience it that the comments from and about IAPT are accurate – it is a useful service but NOT a crisis service and will not and cannot provide the kind of help, immediacy and above all sanctuary that people having a mental distress crisis need.
Much good work with people experiencing mental distress will be undermined if this service goes. Others working with people with mental distress in public, voluntary and private settings need the crisis centre as it supports and complements their work. I am concerned that other services will also be badly affected if the crisis centre goes and there will be a snow-ball effect such that other services/practitioners have to shut up shop. A very bad picture for mental well-being in the city.
Thank god for the crisis centre I don’t know where myself and my children would be if it wasn’t for them, having someone within 24 hours to talk to was my saving grace. keep it open for someone else in my position.