Beds in the Orchard goes onto Change.org

Beds in the Orchard has launched its own petition on Change.org.  If you would like to support us, please can you spare a moment of your time to share it.

One of the things we are hearing is that we need to show that people care and that our campaing is more than just a passing interest to a small group of local people.

Please help give us a voice.

The Beds in the Orchard campaign team.

https://www.change.org/p/lancashire-care-nhs-foundation-trust-return-local-inpatient-care-to-the-women-of-north-lancashire

The text of our petition is below.

At first glance Beds in the Orchard looks like a small local issue.  After all, what concern should be 6 female inpatient beds in one small psychiatric unit in a one small city be to people elsewhere in the country?

However; you should not be fooled by the small, local appearance of this campaign.  What has happened at The Orchard it is indicative of a much wider problem across the country with the chronic underfunding of Mental Health services impacting on the health and wellbeing of thousands of people and communities.  It is indicative of the hard price being paid by women and their families nationally; as they find that their local inpatient psychiatric care has disappeared, leading to them being separated from their support at the time when they need it most.

As time and again, the cuts to mental health care and the loss of psychiatric beds are not seen as newsworthy, and campaigns like ours are dismissed as being “too small” or “too local” for people take an interest; the wider picture of the loss of services is consistently missed and hidden.  Hidden, of course, until you need the service, only to find it’s not there. 

Closing The Orchard to women and sending them 30-60+ miles away for care:-
 - Discriminates against women
 - Deters women from seeking help, which can lead to increased detentions under the Mental Health Act
 - Harms families, especially children.
 - Puts a heavy financial burden onto families with substantial travel costs to visit their relative.
 - Causes the women uneccessary distress and anxiety by separating them from their support networks.
 - Can lead to women being discharged too early, increasing the chance of relapse and readmission.

We believe that inpatient psychiatric care local to home should be provided to both men and women.  We are petitioning that local inpatient psychiatric care is returned to the women of North Lancashire now.  There is more information on our blog.  www.bedsintheorchard.blogspot.co.uk

A letter from a worker in the Trust

Again we receive an anonymous email from someone at The Trust, again we have no idea who this is from, but have sent our thanks. "BananaJam" shares their thoughts.
[Edit - While we really appreciate messages from the trust, we really don't want to get people in trouble!]

I am following your blog with interest.

Following local news, This is Trust wide knowledge, and County wide is public knowledge.  It has filtered down through the grapevine that staff at the Orchard have been given a "talking to" to say nothing to anyone even inside the trust.

I work for LCFT.

What are senior management afraid of in this campaign. The truth is the truth. Public knowledge of Truth AND Lies is essential, especially in public sector services. If a health service is so afraid of a simple truth (truth already in the public domain) that it feels the need to order staff to keep silent, the question has to be begged, why?!

Nothing said to date that I am aware of has been anything other than public knowledge. By it's very nature, the whole issue being campaigned for is public knowledge.

Women, take heart, many of us working within the Trust are behind you! Women and Men. Many people are discussing it within the general public too. In the last week, I have heard people talking about it in my local town.

You have strong cross-gender support for an story that clearly has a major gender thread, in a subject area of Health and Wellbeing.