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New Statutory body as an alternative to the NHS for mental health and hidden disability

IrishInManchesterUK

Now that advances in medical science has uncovered more people in modern times, children, adolescents and adults alike, including in the post-Covid era, with mental health and hidden disabilities including autism, is it not now time to set up a separate statutory body, properly funded and properly managed, entirely seperate from the NHS, dealing exclusively with all mental health and hidden disability issues? We all know the problems of the NHS that have been going on for decades and are well-documented, of mismanagement and wastage, so is it not time for a fresh start with a new body, alongside implementing reforms within the NHS?

Parents

  • While relatively minor issues can be figured out, the reality at the end of the day is that the current crisis situation is totally unsustainable and further emphasises the need to “take the bull by the horns” in implementing innovative, fundamental, far-reaching and groundbreaking legislative changes where, yes, a revolution is exactly what is absolutely required, much needed and long overdue, where difficult decisions must be made, even if unpopular to some, driven by the kind of strong leadership that is exactly what is needed - while I acknowledge the comments made regarding various issues, the present situation must not be allowed to continue - my granny used to say that “there are limits to everything” and “what will a certain course of action lead to” and very often during my 30 years in supermarket retailing, our managers had to use their initiative in dealing with certain situations using common sense 

  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    Trigger warning:
    For a neurodivergent person whose nervous system is already dysregulated by a hostile world, a "revolution" can feel terrifying because it threatens what little stability they have left.
    I know this from personal experience, so I respect where other people may be coming from on this, 
    Nonetheless...
    This thread and what has happened in it is why I said in my first response that the only way change is going to happen is through a revolutionary shift in thought and practice—I'm with granny's thinking on this.
    By adopting the language of the establishment ("it's too expensive," "the public won't support it," "large systems always fail"), people are essentially acting as the gatekeepers of their own marginalisation. It is preemptively managing one's own expectations for a system that is already failing us. "Turkeys voting for Christmas" springs to mind.
    But if I look closer at this, and perhaps more compassionately, the answers members are coming up with here could be a defence mechanism against a much deeper, more painful truth: if a better world for neurodivergent people is actually possible, then the suffering people are currently experiencing is completely unnecessary and cruel.
    It is psychologically safer to believe that a system is broken because it has to be.
    I tried to break the spell by shifting the conversation away from "costs" to "savings" and explaining that if there's a will, there's a way.
    Personally, though, I maintain that the only way for true psychological safety to come about is through revolutionary thinking and action.
    Up the Grannies!!!
  • in reply to Phased

    I’ve read through most of your linked thread and replies to same, (even though it was beyond my own understanding) and to me, given my traditional Irish Catholic faith background, it all really boils down to being a decent person and having a properly functioning moral compass, as this is essentially an ethical and moral issue, that used to be the case at the start of the NHS in 1948 and its founding principles - many Irish nurses who joined the NHS from the 1950’s well into the 1980’s came from Irish hospitals run by Irish Catholic nuns who ran the Irish hospitals properly, according to traditional Catholic teachings pre-Vatican II (1962) and to these Irish Catholic nursing nuns, nursing was far more than just a 9-5 job, it was their vocation, their whole life’s work and they passed these values onto the Irish girls that trained under them, many of whom had been convent educated in the Catholic Ireland of that time (to which we need to return) - I’ve met many of these wonderful Irish nurses over the years and it’s ironic that in the years after their retirement many of these elderly Irish women were badly let down by the NHS that has become ideologically driven even before Covid, amid decades long documented scandals of mismanagement and wastage of public funds in multiple ways, where mental health and hidden disability was an afterthought, where the bulk of (already the poor relation and limited) mental health funding was obsessively focused on children’s autism at the expense of autistic adults - aside from the Liverpool Care Pathway (and the horrific Maid programme in Canada) that was only defeated by a worryingly narrow margin in the Commons, as an older and conservative-minded gay man myself, I was outraged to discover that much-needed NHS funding and resources were being given to children in the form of beta-blockers and gender reassignment hormones where also, transgender surgeries were being performed in the NHS - given the horrific stories from detransitioners, I’m totally opposed to this, especially in the case of children - frankly, our political leaders need to “cop themselves on” and do what is right and start to rediscover their moral compass, grow up and stop acting like children - attitudes will only change when strong and properly enforced legislation is passed (and this will work for public education on autism, mental health and hidden disabilities too) that provide for criminal prosecutions and jail time for senior managers in the NHS and politicians who fail to take their ethical and moral responsibilities and obligations sufficiently seriously - they need to be constantly and robustly challenged on their continued failures in a supposedly civilised, compassionate and caring society underpinned by Christian ethical and moral principles and we must take a “zero tolerance” approach and mindset, which has worked very well for other groups fighting for change, such as the gay community 

  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    Yep, well said in many respects  . We are incredibly complex creatures when it comes to morals and ethics.
    The gist of what I was getting at is that for many people employed in such critical areas, staff are systematically channelled, inhibited, and coerced by the built-in hypocrisy of the system they work in.
    The Liverpool Care Pathway was found by an independent review to be good in concept but badly abused and misapplied in practice. The scariest thing, as you rightly point out, was that financial incentives were actively linked to its use.
    I actually worked in this setting whilst the LCP was being introduced, challenged, and then ultimately replaced. Processing a retrospective on it now is potentially useful to help me make sense of what I lived through and didn't fully understand or process at the time—it is cathartic, maybe—so please bear with me.
    During that era, professional autonomy and careful, balanced clinical judgement were abruptly replaced by a 12-page tick-box booklet. For many clinicians, this meant stripping away personal ethical, moral, and professional decision-making and communication, replacing it with a form of bureaucratic and administrative surveillance.
    Then, the next generation of staff—those who were newly trained and accustomed to having life-and-death decisions mapped out for them by the bureaucracy—suddenly had that protocol withdrawn from them. Cue another crisis. Staff were told to go back to providing highly individualised care, but they were forced to do so without the actual resources or time to enable it.
    There remains a fundamental truth, in my mind at least, that we are trapped in a bureaucratic system and architecture run by individuals who are a long way away from the day-to-day realities and difficulties of doing this intellectually, emotionally, and ethically punishing work.
    The front-line health staff were unlikely to have been intrinsically evil in their intent; rather, the system they were required to work under forced them to behave as if they were. Because of this, I agree completely with your point regarding criminal prosecutions for the senior managers and politicians who design and oversee these frameworks. It creates what I described on my other post as a level of "structural spite and hostility" directed towards vulnerable people.
    Today, that "tick-box booklet" mentality has mutated. It is now deeply embedded in countless workplace apps, metrics, and modern management methodologies. This allows organisations to claim they are doing one thing via public relations, while their active infrastructure enforces something else entirely—allowing individuals to bypass their own personal morals and ethics by delegating them to the institution.
    The main push of the other thread I set up was to explore why so many vulnerable people buy into the idea that they simply have to put up with things as they are, accepting the narrative that "there is no alternative."
    As I suggested previously, I believe we buy into these limitations because to think otherwise—to accept that a better world is genuinely possible—requires us to first confront just how much institutional spite and hostility we are actively experiencing. Remarkably, facing that systemic cruelty is far harder psychologically than believing society is doing all it can for us.
    Best Wishes
Reply
  • in reply to IrishInManchesterUK
    Yep, well said in many respects  . We are incredibly complex creatures when it comes to morals and ethics.
    The gist of what I was getting at is that for many people employed in such critical areas, staff are systematically channelled, inhibited, and coerced by the built-in hypocrisy of the system they work in.
    The Liverpool Care Pathway was found by an independent review to be good in concept but badly abused and misapplied in practice. The scariest thing, as you rightly point out, was that financial incentives were actively linked to its use.
    I actually worked in this setting whilst the LCP was being introduced, challenged, and then ultimately replaced. Processing a retrospective on it now is potentially useful to help me make sense of what I lived through and didn't fully understand or process at the time—it is cathartic, maybe—so please bear with me.
    During that era, professional autonomy and careful, balanced clinical judgement were abruptly replaced by a 12-page tick-box booklet. For many clinicians, this meant stripping away personal ethical, moral, and professional decision-making and communication, replacing it with a form of bureaucratic and administrative surveillance.
    Then, the next generation of staff—those who were newly trained and accustomed to having life-and-death decisions mapped out for them by the bureaucracy—suddenly had that protocol withdrawn from them. Cue another crisis. Staff were told to go back to providing highly individualised care, but they were forced to do so without the actual resources or time to enable it.
    There remains a fundamental truth, in my mind at least, that we are trapped in a bureaucratic system and architecture run by individuals who are a long way away from the day-to-day realities and difficulties of doing this intellectually, emotionally, and ethically punishing work.
    The front-line health staff were unlikely to have been intrinsically evil in their intent; rather, the system they were required to work under forced them to behave as if they were. Because of this, I agree completely with your point regarding criminal prosecutions for the senior managers and politicians who design and oversee these frameworks. It creates what I described on my other post as a level of "structural spite and hostility" directed towards vulnerable people.
    Today, that "tick-box booklet" mentality has mutated. It is now deeply embedded in countless workplace apps, metrics, and modern management methodologies. This allows organisations to claim they are doing one thing via public relations, while their active infrastructure enforces something else entirely—allowing individuals to bypass their own personal morals and ethics by delegating them to the institution.
    The main push of the other thread I set up was to explore why so many vulnerable people buy into the idea that they simply have to put up with things as they are, accepting the narrative that "there is no alternative."
    As I suggested previously, I believe we buy into these limitations because to think otherwise—to accept that a better world is genuinely possible—requires us to first confront just how much institutional spite and hostility we are actively experiencing. Remarkably, facing that systemic cruelty is far harder psychologically than believing society is doing all it can for us.
    Best Wishes
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