The current system in place for mental health is failing thousands vulnerable adults and their families. Many individuals are struggling to access the health care they need and are too often turned away. 

I am calling on the government to review the process and remove the large number of hoops patients have to jump through, in order to get the correct treatment. My dad has been suffering with schizophrenia for 28 years and too often we have gone through this process. We wait in A&E, after telling the front desk we need to see a psychiatrist, for at least four hours to see a doctor, then to be told he needs to see a psychiatrist which we requested when we arrived. We can then be waiting hours if not days, as in our latest case where we have currently waited five days since first reporting the issue, all the while my dad is disorientated and sometimes aggressive to doctors and other patients. In this time his health has deteriorated massively and will possibly take months in hospital following a section to get him back to his usual self. If we had been given the support initially he would have gone in for treatment voluntarily and in all likelihood been home by now. 

I understand that given the cuts to the N.H.S. all services are under stress but how much does it cost to call out psychiatrists and have people hit rock bottom before they can receive treatment. Surely a separate service regionally or per county for Mental Health Services set up with psychiatrists, social workers, and nurses trained to deal with Mental Health so they can be seen and treated before it escalates would be more cost effective for both the N.H.S. and the police service who so often end up picking up the pieces when people are discharged early or simply fobbed off without treatment. 

This needs to change Mental Health should have the same level of care as physical health. As it stands people are suffering unnecessarily and the system is putting both the patients and others at risk of harm by looking to treat the physical issues only and ignoring the mental health ones.