WE'VE WON!!!!!!! The Beds in the Orchard are female once more!

It is with HUGE excitement and pride that we can announce that from 5pm this evening The Orchard will be reopened to women. Women from Lancaster and District who are currently in hospitals away from home will be coming back to The Orchard over the next few days.

WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!

There are a lot of people that we'd like to thank for all of their help with this campaign, but for now we're busy spreading the word.  However a quick thanks to...

BBC Radio Lancashire - particularly Tim Padfield.
The Lancaster Guardian.
David Morris MP
Glosswitch at the New Stateman
Louise Pennington at the Huffington Post
@LynnCSchreiber for her lesson in social media 101
Everyday Victim Blaming
Mumsnet, Mumsnet Bloggers and Gransnet
Philippa Molloy and Lisa Toner, not forgetting Bee, Janet, Bex and the BITO Massive.

And, of course, everyone who signed our petition, followed our blog and tweeted their support.  There are too many to name here.

I would like to say one thanks to Keith Dibble, the Deputy Network Director at Lancashire Care NHS Trust for his professionalism in dealing with our campaign and keeping in regular touch about what the Trust were doing to put this right.

Did I mention that WE WON!!!

Pinned Post

For who we are and what you can to help, please go to the post linked below.

http://bedsintheorchard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/pinned-post-who-we-are-and-what-you-can.html 

You can sign our Petition here.

More information about why we are campaigning is here.

http://bedsintheorchard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/how-wrong-does-something-have-to-be.html

We do love a good rant - an accurate one too

Hi BITO
Not noticed this is norm, but can I request that you post this rather than leave it as a comment?
R
Oh go on Anonymous, since you asked so nicely.

What the hell do the LCareFT CARE. They don't give a shite.
They speak a load of Drivell.
They promised on County wide radio this won't be for ..."weeks and weeks!"
They told a misleading truth. They mislead the citizens of Lancashire and the radio and newspaper reporters.
It has been MONTHS and MONTHS and it seems the Harbour opening is 'surprise-surprise' going to be delayed.
So to recap Only going to be until the Harbour opens; no, just less than weeks and weeks.
The women are told they are going to the Orchard but have that rug pulled from under them just a couple of days before Christmas (Heartless Cruelty)
They empty the female wing; of all but one man, but instead of going that last step they refilled the empty five beds with men knowing the difficulty they say they faced to get to that stage.
And there are no signs that the concerns and frustration voiced re the experiences around the CRISIS (CRISIS RESOLUTION AND HOME TREATMENT TEAM (CRHTT) - CuRT by name CuRT by nature it seems)) are being addressed, nor even acknowledged.
Is this Trust run by amateurs, the heartless or the blissfully ignorant?!
Give these women their Therapeutic Need!
If anyone is harmed as a direct result of your actions and inactions The Truth WILL Out LCFT




Posted by Anonymous to Beds In The Orchard at 30 January 2015 at 14:18

Can you keep yourself safe? An adventure with Crisis.

Can you keep yourself safe?

So there's no local care.  We know about this and at least two people yesterday who are following this campaign have been deterred from seeking help because they are scared of what will happen. 

Fear.  Fear is a bad thing when you are already fearful, or perhaps not thinking rationally, or seeing every small set back as a huge challenge that can't be overcome.  Catastrophising.  Every little thing lending weight to the idea sat in your head that life isn't worth living and you'd be better off dead.

In steps the Crisis Team.

Except there's not many people in the Crisis team, and personal experiences shared by Service Users expose the huge disparity of the care given by individual members. 

If you have a crisis in the middle of the night, you need to vie to speak to the lone worker who is covering all of the area.  On other nights you find yourself being transferred to the lone worker sat in another area of the Trust, miles away.  What can they do?  Not much.


But surely you will get a sympathetic response?  Not always.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Was it you calling over and over again when I was on another call?  We do have other people you know".

So you end up feeling worse, like you're wasting their time.  Like you're even more nothing than you were before.  This makes the usual "what can you do to distract yourself" and "What has helped before when you've felt like this." seem benign, although generally very unhelpful.

Then you have the assessment of risk, except if you don't fit nicely into their check-sheet for risk then you're not as likely to be taken seriously to get help.  You have a mental illness - fine.  Not a man of a low socioeconomic background who lives alone?  Well why aren't you organising your own help then?

Because its that easy, isn't it.

Then you have the pejorative way in which some members of the team treat people who even have a whiff of a note of "personality disorder" against them - or worse, when someone in the team decides you have a PD despite there being no such pathology in any report.

They can't really mean it, they're manipulative and attention seeking. Missing the point that each case needs to be taken on its own merit.

Then the last question - Can you keep yourself safe?

Well no, no I don't think I can, that's why I am calling you, but by calling, you dismiss the sincerity of what I am saying because I've called you.

Can you keep yourself safe?  You better be able to as there's no help to be found.

#crisisteamfail

To treat or not to treat - that is the question

So what happens when you're to scared to call for help as you don't know where you'll end up?

This, from one of our contributors today.

Things haven't been so good lately.  I'm finding it harder and harder to cope.

I can't sleep, but then when I sleep, I can't wake up.
I can't concentrate on anything other than making plans to end it all.

But I don't want to call for help.  What are my options?  There are no options.

The Crisis team?  What can they do anyway?  Tell you off if you call them instead of the CCTT when you aren't sure which number to ring.  Have a magical bath of healing. Distract yourself.  End up feeling worse than before you called.

So you're offered hospital, but I have no idea where will I end up. 

• Burnley, which by all accounts is hell on earth.
• Blackpool, which has a great reputation, but only next to Burnley.
• Chorley, miles away from my family and too far for them to visit.
• Ormskirk?   I'm not even sure where the hell Ormskirk is.
• Some private hospital somewhere? Not local, Manchester? Further?

I don't want to be sent miles away.  I just don't.  Knowing there's fuck all chance of being close to home, desperate to get out.  That's not healing.  That's not the environment you can get better in.

So I'm not calling for support as it's pointless. There's no point in calling for support when there's none, is there.  If I ask for support and end up hospitalised then I'm screwed.

I give in.  I really do. There's no help and no where to turn to.

Thanks LCFT.  Thank you very much for taking away my local hospital.  Thank you for screwing me over just because I'm a woman.  Thanks for screwing over your own bed capacity to my loss.

Thanks for nothing.

Is this really our last refuge?

LCFT Use a Women's Refuge for female service user in MH Crisis.

The demand for beds in North Lancashire continues unabated, with female referrals now matching those of men.  With the Trust's inpatient facilities full and a substantial number of private beds being used, getting inpatient treatment is now almost impossible.
  
Yesterday a female service user from North Lancashire was sent to a women's refuge after being told there were no female beds available anywhere.  Even though she has a chronic mental health condition and was experiencing psychotic symptoms brought on by stress, she was assessed as "too sane" to be admitted to a private bed and since the stress was due to issues within the home, the only place they could send her to was a woman's refuge.

Is this what it's come to?  Really?

Is a refuge really the right place for someone experiencing a mental health crisis?  Would a man be sent to a refuge, or would he be found a bed somewhere?  It's a damned serious question and one that has to be asked.

Women's refuges are such an important resource.  For a Mental Health Trust to use them as a back up to a service creaking under the strain of inadequate provision would seem to be a misuse of that service.

Having spoken to the woman in question, she is concerned about relapsing and knows there is nothing she can do, as there's literally no room at the LCFT Inn.

Je Suis Charlie

This is, of course, a blog about how psych services have let down women.  However the events of this week have touched a very personal nerve for me.  It involves my love of satire, freedom of expression and French cartoonists.  My French is a bit rusty, so I give my apologies, but it seems appropriate that I post this in the language it should be. This isn't about BITO. It's a bit more personal than that.

Je ai été un grand fan de caricaturistes français pendant une longue période . Dès les premiers instants , je ai lu Astérix en anglais comme un enfant , à Spirou en français comme une jeune fille de Fluide Glacial dans mon adolescence .

Mes étagères à la maison sont stockés avec des albums de bandes dessinées . Je Stock sur eux chaque fois que je vais à la France, comme d'autres personnes se approvisionner en vin. Je les ai dans ma collection de livres iTunes . Ils ont été une partie constante de ma vie , quoique que la plupart des gens autour de moi dans le juste ne obtiennent pas .

Alors que Private Eye remplit un petit écart dans l'année, il ya toujours un désir de certains bandes de style français appropriées Dessine que les romans graphiques et les bandes dessinées du Royaume-Uni et des États-Unis ne semblent pas être en mesure d'égaler . Les dessins animés et leur humour me touchent d'une manière qui me ramène tout au long de ma vie pour la première fois je ai ramassé Astérix - et bien sûr , Tintin Belge.

Je espère transmettre mon amour pour eux à mes enfants . Ma fille tente déjà de chanter en français à Mylene Farmer, alors peut-être il ya espoir.

Malgré mon amour pour eux tout au long des années , je ne me attendais pas à voir le jour où certains de mes bien-aimés caricaturistes seraient tués pour dessiner une image que quelqu'un d'autre ne aimait pas .

La liberté de parole . La liberté d'expression . Je ai le droit de vous offenser . Vous avez le droit d'être offensé .

Personne ne devrait mourir pour un dessin et personne ne devrait avoir à arrêter de dessiner au cas où ils meurent .

Laissez le stylo être plus puissante que l' épée.

Je suis Charlie

Philippa