Mental health services are under considerable pressure in our local health and social services partnership trust. This is primarily down to cuts in budgets which are impacting on jobs and services.
The team I work in has been cut to the bare bones. The 'efficiency drive' has displaced or closed posts so we are very few in number. Before issues become 'union issues' a workplace rep is required to try and sort out workplace issues with the management team first. This is what is called "meaningful discussions at an appropriate forum".
We have had a team development day to discuss the recovery model, a 'new' community service we are to offer in the coming six months. However, our team does not know how to deliver the current service and is 'crisis managing' cases due to workloads and lack of staff.
You cannot implement a 'recovery model' until the crisis has been managed. Therefore we are asking senior management to discuss staffing and current work pressures before we discuss the new model we are being asked to implement.
There are other problems our team have that are unique. Without going into too much detail here the team should have joined another team in April. Our office was supposed to close and we were going to move. Now we sit in different offices covering two seperate areas using different hospitals and different community psychiatric services, but are called one team.
We are still waiting for the management structure to be 'reviewed' and for another post to go.......the manager's!
The manager under 'review' is supposed to be leading us into our new world of recovery services, even though odds they are most likely not to be part of it!
So I am working in one team split into two, with two sets of workers working to two different models aiming to be one covering two areas. There are two employers and two Unison branches working with two sets of management and two human resources. We have two computer systems and two sets of recording structures. We have two drivers for efficiency savings with more cuts on the horizon over the next few years.
This is a mental health service defining madness before it gets near anybody with a mental health problem. I hope I don't get ill in the meantime.....
(Pic: Mark Gstohl on flickr)
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