Ipswich Integrated Delivery Team (IDT) - Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

Referred in April 2018, not allocated a care coordinator until September 2018, met care co in October prior to her seeing my son, but eight months later she still has not seen him and we have had no contact from the team in that time.

The Support Workers, Care Coordinators, and other support staff that one does come into contact with do work hard, but each are dealing with an extremely high case load and this makes it difficult for them to fully support their service users. The Reception Area could do with a lot of improvement - one will call and leave a message if the person's not there, only to find that the intended recipient never received it. NHS/Council - Pay the current staff here what they're actually worth, and make it a more supportive work environment so you can actually retain employees for longer than three months.

Insufficient staff, who are pressurised by high case loads, cut corners, then fall ill, and are off sick until their resignation goes through. Simply little or no resources for the young people who need help most. This is not about individuals it is about a failing Trust,

Care Coordinator has been good but there have been several occasions when she has not been available to meet as planned but the IDT has not informed me.

Mental health SERVICE would appear to be a misnomer. A rude, judgemental, unprofessional psychiatrist to start with, and another psychiatrist who appeared to clock watch, prejudged and prescribed antidepressant medication which caused further problems. This was despite being advised by myself and my GP that a bipolar spectrum illness was suspected.

My faith in the NHS is awful. I am still waiting to hear from mental health (having been referred by Ravenswood surgery) as I suffer depression and my mother who lives with me has cancer. We were promised the earth and and we have had no help or support.

Psychiatrist diagnosis after 10 minutes,

The last thing this team does is communicate back to outpatient clinics. They sit in their own little silo completely oblivious to the idea of multi-disciplinary team work. If your loved one has Parkinson's disease forget it, they don't have any knowledge. It's not surprising that this team has been marked inadequate by the CQC. This problem will never be solved by tinkering with the Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust. It needs to be completely dismantled and integrated into outpatient services. A tremendous amount of money is wasted by employing "camp followers" whose only job is to cover unsuccessfully the cracks, this money could be better spent on employing and training more clinicians.

When I was diagnosed with mild depression, I was referred to the wellbeing service at Mariner House. I was offered telephone counselling first, but due to the waiting time, I was referred to the wellbeing workshops. They suggested ways to change the way I felt by changing my behaviour. Whilst these may have been good ideas, they don't work without practice and during my depression i didn't want to change what I did - I needed support to do this. I started telephone counselling, but this didn't work for me as I tended to be looking out of the window, while the counsellor did most of the talking. It did, however, give me the confidence to tell the counsellor how I felt and I was referred to face-to-face counselling. Whilst this worked better, there were no distractions, it wasn't successful in the time allowed. I was therefore referred to paid counselling. This was again unsuccessful as the counsellor, in my judgement, had more problems than I and couldn't form a relationship with me.. By good fortune, through work I was doing with Suffolk Family Carers, I had the opportunity to attend an 8-week course of mindfulness. Each session comprised practice of mindfulness exercises led by an experienced exponent. I was with a group of 10 - 12 other, some of whom were more affected by their problems. Being in the session with others meant that I had to practice what was being taught and I found that very encouraging. Being with others with similar problems was a further benefit that I did not expect as we would share our experiences and feelings. Sometimes a member would respond with a way of dealing with life that helped. This aspect of the sessions - mutual aid and support, coupled with the practice of mindfulness, cured my depression. Indeed, I have felt much happier and positive about my life ever since. As an offshoot of this course, I have joined a mindfulness group. The people are all "graduates" of the mindfulness courses run by the same leader, so we still share some of the issues. Again we are able to share our experience , strength and hopes with one another in the group setting, which provides the necessary impetus to keep going and to continue practising mindfulness. I believe these courses are no longer available and everything is now "on-line", which misses the crucial element of recovery from depression which is to get out and meet other people in a similar situation. This reduces the feeling of loneliness and isolation which depression can bring. It is time away from the home situation, which might be the source of the depression, as it was for me. I am very grateful to Suffolk Family Carers and our leader for releasing me from my depression in such a positive way. i don't think an "on-line" solution would work for me as there would be nothing to make me try or do it. When I am with others, there is a certain amount of peer pressure, plus the leader may have had his own difficulties (ours had been suicidal before he found mindfulness) and therefore able to give encouragement and explanation of why it works. Sorry it's so long, but I'm a great believer in the success of how mindfulness helped and continues to help me. I would want the same or similar sessions to be available to others.

I was referred to this team back in June 2017. I was first told that I couldn’t see a female doctor as there was none in the team. I was then given a female Doctor but then told she would be leaving so I would only have one appointment with her. I understand people change jobs so that was no problem to me! I then we told that there was no female doctors and was given a appointment with a male doctor where I had a female support worker sitting in with me. Throughout that appointment was then told I wouldn’t be left alone I would have support but I haven’t had anything. I then found out it was between 6-8 weeks before I would be re reviewed it’s now the 10th week and I’m chasing for an appointment. Each time I call them I get told that someone will call me back. As I do not know who I saw or who I was supposed to be seeing that it’s hard to even know who supposed to be calling me as they don’t have a receptionist! Well with this day and age i would of thought that they would have a system which would inform them. I’m now still waiting for a appointment I’ve told them that I am due to run out of medication and this who process it just making me worse. I don’t know what else to do and have given up all hope.