Horrible letter from community mental health team [Removed by Moderator] Merseyside

My reaction to this is because I have had three years of awful and dismissive behaviour from them, I have had to make complaints and even the complaint process has been awful. The staff are ignorant and unprofessional. They have made my mental health worse.

It wasn't a standard letter. It was a 'special letter' written by so called 'autism experts'. I have received letters from them before, ordinary letters written in normal language. This letter is actually bizarre.

They have made an assumption that because I have an Autism diagnosis I must be spoken to very slowly using very simple words that a four year old would understand. If they were to speak to me face to face in such a way would this be acceptable. 

Mim77 said:

It is written in very simple language you would use to a small child. I am a grown adult and parent, I am of normal intelligence and have no issues understanding complex information.

I suspect that what you received was a standard letter written to cater to the lowest common denomonator of peoples understanding. This would be normal practice for an organisation that has to send the same sort of correspondence to different people.

If you understood it then it did its job.

If they had sent the letter in a way that was very technical and you could not understand it then I think there would be grounds to be unhappy.

Mim77 said:

I have been diagnosed with EUPD

Do you think that this could result in an over-reaction here? I'm not saying you have over-reacted but am suggesting trying to reflect and consider if your response was reasonable and proportionate.

Mim77 said:

I almost feel like this is discrimination of some sort

Try to think like a lawyer to gauge if this is a realistic consideration. Did they break any rules or make it intentionally hard for you to understand. I would think that intentionally making it easy to understand would establish that it is not discriminating, but I don't have the wording to make such a determination.

I have also found that if I make use of the National Autistic Society "My Health Passport":

www.autism.org.uk/.../my-health-passport

...a new-to-me medical team will either have a good introduction to me in advance of first meeting me in person (as I send it to them by email), or, my already having provided it to them; it then makes shorter work of my needing to explain an issue I experienced with their service (as I can make reference to the relevant section of the My Health Passport).

Sometimes it works better than others, depending upon which physical / mental health team is involved in my care - but when it works well; it is very useful.

I update it once a year (if there is something important to add or amend).

I thought our local cmht team were bad, *removed by moderator*

Well but it says 'this letter was written by autism experts'? If they are really experts in autism why would they write such a patronising and condescending letter. Why would they make assumptions that I can't understand letters. That is what has upset me the most. Autism is a wide spectrum of all levels of intelligence. If an expert had really written it they would know not to write as if I have a learning disability.

Right fair enough. But they have upset me, whether by malice or incompetence

The letter is not signed so I would guess some admin person did it.

They might not have met you, so could have made a wrong assumption. Or maybe someone ticked the wrong box saying what type of letter was appropriate.

It might just be a careless mistake.

If the content is correct, it seems to just be a communication problem.

You can probably trust the EUPD diagnosis. This would have been done by someone qualified.

I'm not telling you what to do or think, I was not there. Only to consider they might not have intended to upset you 

Thank you I will be doing this

This sort of thing would drive me up the wall. I would be writing a letter back, addressing their points one by one and making it crystal clear that I did not appreciate the condescending tone of their letter.

an error in assuming because I have autism that I have difficulty reading complex letters and must be spoken to as if I am a child or have learning disability? 

Do you agree with the technical content of the letter? If you ignore the style and simple language is it right?

There seems to a mismatch between what they have said or done and your expectations. Perhaps they are worried you may not have understood. To make sure there is no misunderstanding they may have chosen this format.

Or it might just have been an error.

well I think they saw that I had an autism diagnosis and so must be spoken to as if I am very stupid. 

I meant that: the person choosing which standard letter their Team uses when they wrote to you - could have looked to see who you were as a patient and which might be the best type of language or format to be used in the letter sent to you.

what is an audience appropriate template sorry?

Thank you, I contacted PALS to make a complaint and actually they were awful, they wouldn't let me make the complaint in writing and said I had to speak to a staff member which I didn't want to do. I had to insist that I make the complaint in writing. One of them even said I was being vindictive. 

So sorry to hear about the upsetting letter - particularly, poor when there is no attributed point of contact / reference as it was not signed.

If if was from a NHS Team in the UK; you could contact PALS (Patient and Liaison Services):

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/other-health-services/patient-advice-and-liaison-services-pals/

This might help progress things if your contact to date with the Team has been inappropriate / their service has not been accessible.

I have first-hand positive experience of having contacted PALS in my area - they aided my engagement with the required team (to which I had been referred by my GP).

While it is good to hear that other letter formats, such as Easy Read, are available to their Team, it sounds poor that an audience appropriate template was not used in your case.

I have had a nightmare with them the past three years, even though they referred me for an Autism diagnosis, it seems to have been pointless because none of their staff have any understanding of autism. I have been diagnosed with EUPD as well and have no trust now in this diagnosis, they made me do this useless therapy with a nurse who was really dismissive of me, because I am slow to process stuff too I wouldn't react when she would say these awful things and then it came to a head in my final appointment with her, she made a nasty comment implying I was weird and not like her other patients. She then took sick leave for five months and I never spoke to her again. I blamed myself as everyone always rejects me anyway, so why wouldn't she? I keep trying to explain to the team how much this has upset me and all I get told is that it's in the past.