Hello

My names Charles Marshall, I have suffered from mental health my whole life. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I have been through the NHS mental health system many times regarding my mental health and nothing has changed! If anything my mental health has deteriorated.

I believe the whole system needs to be changed, my main concerns which I want to see change are as follows;

1) 'healthy minds' is an NHS funded thepary center. These centers are located all over the country. They are usually within GP practices, they offer CBT therapy and other talking councelling sessions either in groups or one on one. They ask you a questionnaire at the start of every session, each session is 30 minutes long however these questionnaires take 20-25 minutes to fill out and your score be calculated! My major concerns with the questions are they are totally irrelevant to each individual's case. The same questionnare is given to EVERYONE who goes regardless of what they are being treated for! One of the first questions they ask you is 'on a scale of 1-10, 10 being very often, how often have you thought about self harming yourself this week' this question is totally irrelevant to someone who suffers from anxiety, the question actually puts thoughts into people's heads about self harming themselves. I want to see questions made for each individual type of mental health condition, related to how that person would feel. I also don't agree with the scoring systems, I score 40 out of 40 for anxiety this week, so? what exactly does that mean? nothing...

2) I want to see exactly where the NHS budget for mental health goes, they promised 1 billion pounds will be spent this year on mental health, I am yet to see where they have spent this money?

3) I want everybody who works within the mental health system to have their wages and qualifications in the public domain for everyone to see and read. I don't believe many people who suffer from mental health are actually working in the NHS system, this brings me onto my 4th point

4) I want somebody who has suffered from mental health and actually understands what it feels like on a day to day basis to be on the mental health committee. Too many people within the mental health system have got a university degree and their knowledge from reading the conditions in a book. You can't help anyone with mental health if you havn't been through it yourself! I believe someone should be advising the committee and NHS on how we can help or change the systems not leave it up to people who have no clue what it's like to suffer. I want someone I can trust and believe in working for the people who suffer from mental health.

 
I urge you to sign this petition to help us take this to the mental health committee and challenge them regarding all these matters, this isn't just about past or currents generations, this is also about future generations.

Thank you, we can help change mental health together