Description

By The Collective Imagination of Richmond Borough Mind

ISBN: 978-1-84991-740-7
Published: 2012
Pages: 118
Key Themes: Mental Health, Community, Empowerment, Peer Support

Description

Mental health has long been the Cinderella of the NHS. Patients and their carers are often embarrassed by the symptoms of mental illness. Clinicians rarely attract the glamour of brain or heart surgeons, or cancer specialists. Mental health nursing does not have the Florence Nightingale image. The public do not campaign and demonstrate for mental health wards in a way that they do for A and E wards or maternity units.

I have long had a close personal interest in mental health issues. My early teenage years were overshadowed by the hospitalisation of my mother for mental illness, what would now be called post-natal depression and dealt with in other ways. As a student I nursed the elderly mentally ill in one of the more enlightened institutions and met my late wife who was nursing on the childrens ward.

I have tried as Twickenham MP, to promote mental health issues and to work with voluntary groups, carers and patients to improve local services. I am delighted that Richmond Borough MIND has been able to take this initiative to promote the creative work of its groups.