Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation Aims
Fully Funded NHS Mental Health Services:
- Advocate for comprehensive funding of NHS mental health services with a focus on early intervention and continuity of care. Ensure all treatments are compassionate, holistic, and patient-led
Support Peer Supported Open Dialogue (POD):
- Promote the implementation of the Peer Support Open Dialogue approach, recently trialled across NHS England. This family and social network approach provides immediate support at the point of need, ensuring consistency and continuity of care
Open Dialogue in Schools and Communities (ODiSC)
- A collaboration between healthcare practitioners from the NHS involved in the ODDESSI trial and researchers based in the UK who are interested in the potential of Open Dialogue to be used in school settings and beyond.
Online Training in Compassionate and Relational Listening (CARL)
- Offer regular online training opportunities in Compassionate and Relational Listening (CARL) for health professionals, patients, family members, and the wider public
Increase Therapeutic Options:
- Campaign for a broader range of therapeutic options within statutory mental health services. This includes trauma-resolution approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT), Somatic Experiencing (SE), Dance and Movement Psychotherapy https://admp.org.uk/(DMP), and Art Therapy
Fundraising for Trauma Resolution Therapy:
- Raise funds for trauma resolution therapy provided by the Nottingham-based charity IMARA
Support Service User/Relatives/Carer Led Campaigns:
- Stop Oxevision campaign
- Campaign for a Statutory Public Inquiry into Essex Mental Health Services
Please donate via our JustGiving page
Following our popular online training days in Compassionate and Relational Listening Training (CARL) led by Professor Russell Razzaque we are delighted to offer another opportunity 29th November 2024. Tickets available soon.
The Lampard Inquiry into deaths in Essex mental health services begins Monday 9 September
The Lampard Inquiry begins this Monday 9 September. This statutory public inquiry will investigate the deaths of around 2000 patients who lost their lives either on wards in Essex mental health services or within three months of being discharged. The campaign for a statutory public inquiry was started more than a decade ago by Melanie Leahy following the tragic and unexplained death of her son, Matthew, in an Essex mental health unit.
Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation has supported calls for a statutory public inquiry since 2021, when we published an open letter to then Minister of State for Care and Mental Health Gillian Keegan.
On Friday 6 September, we were appalled by the findings of a bombshell report in The Telegraph investigating WhatsApp messages between then Secretary for Health and Social, Matt Hancock, and Minister of State for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, Nadine Dorries. The report showed that Dorries had actively tried to block a statutory public inquiry into the Essex deaths, and sought to isolate and marginalise the bereaved families, especially Melanie Leahy herself.
Melanie, alongside other bereaved relatives, have campaigned tirelessly to ensure Essex mental health services acknowledge and address the systemic failings that have contributed to these deaths. The concerns raised often reference a lack of procedural knowledge and compassion.
As a charity, Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation continues to stand in solidarity with all affected families. We have witnessed first-hand the emotional toll that this campaign has taken on them. We admire their persistence and determination to ensure other families are spared such trauma.
At the same time, we have seen cases where mothers were unjustly blamed in clinical notes, where critical gaps in service provision were noted, and instances where essential documents were not provided at inquests, forcing coroners to intervene and demand these gaps be filled.
Caroline Bald, a Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation trustee whose adult child receives treatment from the same services, recalls the anxiety of leaving them in inpatient care eight months ago. Caroline wanted them to receive the best care possible but also feared for their safety due to the dread felt by many Essex parents. Those parents who entrusted their children to Essex mental health services only to sometimes receive the devastating news of their deaths, followed by conflicting accounts of what happened.
Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation believes that Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages with Nadine Dorries reveal a calculated effort to avert scrutiny from a service that is clearly in disarray. We will continue to stand with Melanie Leahy and the families who depend on the transparency and integrity of Essex mental health services for the safety and health of their loved ones.
Our chair wins a prestigious Royal College of Psychiatrists President’s Medal
On 20 June 2022, our Chair and Founder, Rachel Bannister, won a Royal College of Psychiatrists President’s Medal. As described in the award ceremony, medal winners are chosen by the College President to ‘honour and offer the College’s gratitude to a small number of deserving people annually, who have contributed to policy, public knowledge, education, and meeting population and patient care needs in diverse and challenging circumstances. These awards are instituted to extend the ways in which we celebrate and honour people in all walks of life who have made, and continue to make, significant contributions to improving the lives of people with mental illness. This year, we have chosen seven people whose contributions in diverse fields, relevant to mental health, are truly stunning and inspiring to the profession.’
Rachel, who has been the carer representative on the Royal College of Psychiatrists Council since 2017, won the medal because she ‘continues to ensure the College persists in seeing lived experience as fundamental to progressive change and improvement in the understanding and treatment of those suffering from mental illness.’
With Prof Subodh Dave, Dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Our Chair Writes in the British Medical Journal about Underfunded Mental Healthcare Services
Our Chair, Rachel Bannister, recently wrote an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal where she claimed that without early intervention in the community and continuity of care, people with mental health conditions will continue to be failed by services.
The President of The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) Writes Pledge
Human Rights Activist Peter Tatchell Writes Pledge
Prominent MPs support our cause
Several prominent MPs support our cause, including Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Lucas. On 5 September, Jeremy Corbyn MP endorsed our charity and wrote a pledge about his commitment to improving mental health.
His pledge reads: ‘I will work with and support people going through mental health illness to ensure they receive the support and care they need. I will also work for a less stressful society by elimination of poverty and housing stress!’
We have asked individuals from all major UK parties to pledge their support, and we are happy to have backing across the political spectrum.
Our first fundraising initiative
We are excited to announce our first funding raising initiative in conjunction with the Nottingham-based charity IMARA.
One of our aims as a charity is to promote universal access to, and research in, trauma resolution therapies. In addition, we are working with IMARA to commission therapy for those unable to access therapy through statutory services.
When we refer to ‘trauma’ we mean a traumatic or painful experience in the widest sense of the word.
It could be child developmental trauma: physical, sexual or emotional abuse. It could be a recent traumatic or difficult experience such as bereavement or bullying.
Our initial fundraising target is £42,000 to fund therapeutic intervention provided through IMARA. It will include access to a range of therapies listed here (and below):
Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT)
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT)
Please consider making a donation and help us to offer hope to those who have suffered traumatic experiences but are unable to access support and treatment.
Thank you!
Statement following the death of Nikki Grahame
The trustees of the Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation (registered charity no. 1191319) are deeply saddened to hear of the death of Nikki Grahame. We would like to offer our condolences to all of those who knew and loved her.
Her untimely and tragic death speaks to the many issues facing those needing eating disorder services. Access to early intervention and appropriate treatment continues to be a postcode lottery with many people waiting years to access care. Some continue to be sent to out-of-area inpatient hospitals far from their families and community. This not only prolongs illness but often worsens prognosis.
Our chair, Rachel Bannister, whose daughter has battled an eating disorder for over eight years, said:
‘My daughter has spent two of her teenage years hospitalised in units across the length and breadth of the country. Instead of being supported to recover at home, surrounded by those who love her, she was immersed in the “anorexic world” of several hospitals which no doubt delayed her recovery.’
The Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation believes we desperately need treatment pathways for eating disorders like those available at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The Eating Disorder Intensive Service (EDIS) there is equipped to treat children and young people within their home and community. The EDIS has been running since 2011, and there have been no deaths or serious incidents in its history. The majority of patients are treated successfully in the community without the need for expensive and often traumatising hospital admissions.
The Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation will petition Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, to visit the EDIS and commit to properly investing in good quality, publicly-funded eating disorder services.
Register for the ‘He Died Waiting’ Book Launch Today
Announcing our Attainment of Charitable Status
Today, on World Mental Health Day 2020, we would like to announce that the Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation has achieved chariable status (registered charity no. 1191319). Our aim is to promote and protect mental health, and provide relief to those suffering from mental illness, in particular, but not exclusively by:
- Providing grants and funding for mental health treatment
- Advancing public education into the causes and treatment of mental illness, including undertaking research for the public benefit and the publication of the results
- Informing the public about the available mental health services
With the nation’s mental health a rising concern during the COVID-19 crisis, the work of the Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation has never been more necessary.
The Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation operates nationally. Its trustees are Rachel Bannister (chair), Alex Serafimov, Naomi Rasmussen, and Caroline Bald.
Our patron is the nationally renowned psychiatrist and researcher Ahmed Hankir.
We look forward to playing our part in promoting and protecting mental health.
Our Annual Conference was a Success!
The nationwide mental health crisis brought together mental health campaigners and practitioners, service user groups, unions, and the public at the Mental Health Crisis Summit 2019 in London at the end of September. It was organised by Health Campaigns Together, Keep Our NHS Public, and ourselves, Mental Health – Time for Action. Themes that ran through our event included how poverty contributes to mental ill health and how structural change is needed, demands for an end to austerity and the underfunding of the NHS, calls for the social model of health to become standard and UK law, demands for the end of the ‘hostile environment’ in the NHS, and discussions about how service users must be prioritised in any conversation about mental health.
At the summit, Rachel Bannister, founder of Mental Health – Time for Action, shared her daughter’s moving personal experience of stretched and inadequate child and adolescent mental health services. Denise McKenna, co-founder of the Mental Health Resistance Network, criticised both the medical model and abuses within mental health services. Film director Ken Loach sadly relayed cases of suicide in response to the hopelessness of insecure and low-paid work, and Jon Ashworth, Shadow Health Secretary, discussed how mental and physical wellbeing can be secured by dealing with social and economic problems such as poverty and inequality. He told the conference, “Delivering social wellbeing isn’t just about legislating, but about dealing with the wider social and economical determinants of ill health.”
It is only through campaigns like the Mental Health Crisis Summit, and a social and economic transformation, that we can end the mental health crisis in this country.
Announcing our Second Annual Conference
On Mental Health Awareness Week 2019, Health Campaigns Together, Mental Health – Time for Action and Keep Our NHS Public have called an event:
Mental Health Crisis Summit 2019
Where:
Royal Free Hospital School Of Medicine
Rowland Hill Street
NW3 2PF
London
When:
Saturday 28 September 2019
10am – 5pm
Sign up here:
Eventbrite: https://mentalhealthcrisissummit2019.eventbrite.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1753529494793540/
Keep Our NHS Public Webpage: https://keepournhspublic.com/blog/its-time-to-act-mental-health-crisis-summit-launched/
Tickets:
Unwaged/Low Pension: £5.00
Standard: £10.00
Solidarity: £20.00
What the organisers have to say:
“When a government lets down society’s vulnerable and fails to look after people with mental health issues and in fact is making the situation worse, it is time for us all to come together to demand a better mental health service, a well-funded, public NHS without private interests, and a more responsible society.”
Dr Tony O’Sullivan
Co-Chair of Health Campaigns Together and Keep Our NHS Public
“Despite repeated promises of parity of esteem between mental and physical health, our mental health services are in crisis, with beds and clinicians in short supply while referrals are at an all-time high. Early intervention and access to evidence-based therapies remains a postcode lottery, and little is being done. Our Mental Health Crisis Summit will bring attention to these issues, highlight the failings of the current government, and include the participation of service users, carers, clinicians, academics, campaigners, and the public. Together, at our summit, we will chart a path towards adequately funded, well managed, and user-centred mental health care for all.”
Rachel Bannister and Alex Serafimov
Mental Health – Time for Action
Event is hosted by Mental Health – Time for Action and
https://www.healthcampaignstogether.com
https://keepournhspublic.com
Video links (please watch and share):
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkHlZJh8ZIY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthcampaignstogether/videos/388425645217042/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nhscampaigns/status/1128276723819261954
Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_TUC/status/1128178628666089474 (short clip with subs)
We hope to see you there!
Who are Mental Health – Time for Action?
In 2016 Rachel’s teenage daughter was sent over 300 miles away from home for treatment for a mental health condition. Sadly, it isn’t just Rachel’s family that have had to endure such a painful separation and the resulting trauma. Out of area placements continue to be common practice. They not only cause great upset and trauma for patients and their families they often have a detrimental effect on recovery, through denying patients the all-important continuity of care.
Sky News interview Rachel Bannister 8th October 2018
Mental health, CAMHS in particular, is poorly resourced and under-prioritised in the NHS. It is also a postcode lottery. We need to change that.
‘Mental health — time for action’ is an ongoing campaign for fully funded mental health services within a humane and compassionate society.
We held our inaugural conference 19th May 2018 where we heard from people from a range of backgrounds including Doctors, mental health nurses and teachers all with experience of or interest in mental ill health. In addition to campaigning for better services we are also committed to trying to ensure a happier and more equal society. We believe therefore that we must end austerity, poverty and the current system of over testing in schools. We support the More than A Score Campaign to end testing in primary schools. We also support the Keep Our NHS Public campaign and believe that it is imperative that we return our National Health Service into public ownership and ensure healthcare continues to be available for everyone and remains free at the point of need.
It’s hoped that you will be inspired to join the campaign to fight for properly funded mental health services which we believe must provide continuity and consistency of treatment and wherever possible within the community.
Please sign:
If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts please visit Staying Safe – help if you’re feeling suicidal
Mental Health - Time for Action Foundation 