Longbridge Health and Community Centre (CMHT)

I haven't seen them in a while. They used to not be as good but they have improved more recently. They do call me but I don't have much face to face appointments with them.

I am overdue an appointment with them by over a year. I phoned and they gave me an appointment. A couple of days since and they cancelled it. They said they would give me another appointment but that was in July and there has been nothing. The appointment was due in 2022. They say they will pass on details to receptionists. The psychologist has left but I have not seen anyone since. Still waiting for an appointment. They gave me a list of things to help but they weren't helpful.

My wife has had to change from one area of the trust to the one in Longbridge. My wife felt very supported and cared for with empathetic staff who listened to her. My wife was worried that she would not get this service when moving to Longbridge. Sadly this has been fully realised. My wife struggled for weeks to receive a call back a duty worker and when they did call back they were dismissive of her needs and concerns and did not want to engage with her which left her feeling more vulnerable than before the phone call. Staff state that they are referring concerns to the manager but after being at Longbridge for a year we only received one call back.

The psychiatrist has been very supportive but the rest of the staff have been rude, uncooperative and dismissive of her needs which has left everybody around her feeling anxious that she is not receiving the support that she needs.

Bizarrely the only consistently good experience I’ve had here has been the psychiatrists. I’ve always felt kindly/respectfully treated. The CMHT staff are awful. The CPN I had was so bad I had to stop seeing them despite being desperate for care. I didn’t feel able to put in a formal complaint. The duty team are never available when called and never call back. The medical secretaries never pick up their phones. The manager isn’t helpful and again it is almost impossible to get through to them. In the end I had to call my GP about my MH who called the CMHT instead to ask what was going on. Once I had a ‘callback’ which consisted of two rings (not long enough to pick up the phone) and no message left. This counted as a ‘call back’. There is obviously something very wrong with the staff culture/morale/structure/turnover/understaffing, but this is having a terrible impact on patient care and these issues have led to suicides attempts/deaths of mentally unwell people who have not been able to get the care they need. It’s ironic that mental health staff here could do with patient care training from my local dentist - or any physical healthcare, who are usually warm/polite/respectful. It is bizarre to think that mental health staff would train physical healthcare staff to work with ppl with mental health conditions when they can’t even get the basics right. Anyway, feeling gutted that I’m under this team as I’ve lived in other places with different teams and received better care, so I know that this is particularly bad.

The out of hours mental health service is far better than my previous one. They listen to me. They come out to my home and fast tracked me to Longbridge Health and Community Centre. It took a while to get ADHD medication but I'm happy with the service.

Good and bad. They're quick to address any issues during appointments and in the short term, the receptionists are always friendly and helpful but the CMHT palm you off with medication and leave you for months and months without checking in, meanwhile the medication they fobbed off to your GP to prescribe stops working, you lose track of time and think back about how you've slowly detached yourself from support and they haven't bothered to check that everything is okay. They also lie about saying they've tried to contact you when you haven't had any phonecalls or voicemails.

Rude, dismissive, patronising and judgmental

Always met with friendly helpful staff at reception. The duty Psychiatric Nurse is second to none- my queries are dealt with straight away and any calls are returned the same day.
I have an excellent Psychiatrist who enables me to be fully involved in decisions relating to my medication.
Cannot fault the care I recieve

The reception staff are rude someone that has agoraphobia and not being able to call as I had no phone at the time I gave got my friend permission to call on my behalf he was told tell him to go to a phone box!! when they know Full well that someone with agoraphobia can’t leave the house that’s just one example , they have no compassion and put you on meds then rip them off you when they feel to they forget that A lot of medication is addictive but again they don’t care it’s there way or no way ,or they say they can not help you and say find a GP in which a GP isn’t always qualified for your condition in cases. then you end up Being hospitalised then haveing to go back to the same place that basically put you there .There knowledge of mental health is poor and how they deal with people is detrimental to people’s health. from reading other peoples experiences the place needs to be investigated and heads should roll I feel
Like they look down on you and expect you to be there guinea pig sorry but I’m not gonna be that for no body and no one should have to be . Summary : rude reception that get involved with matters that shouldn’t involve them there job is to be a receptionist not a doctor! and the doctors themselves should re-educate themselves in mental health and deal with people like humans and actually listen to people and not treat them like guinea pigs because they have a degree and let there egos get in the way of actually helping people Most people know what works for them myself included yet it falls on deaf ears .0/10 close the place down or fix a clearly broken system .

Twice during lockdown I have phoned up for support. I am a regular patient - been treated by mental health for the past 20 years at least. When I'm well I have 3 monthly checkups. Been feeling bad and going downhill during lockdown as I am shielding. Twice I have phoned for help and have been told the duty worker will phone back. They never have - which makes me feel even worse in myself. Feel so badly let down and unsupported.