• THE reduction in the number of mental health beds available is having a disastrous impact on the lives of people with severe mental health conditions, (Record demand for hospital beds, October 17).

People struggling to manage their mental health at home often go unsupported, are isolated, living in poverty.

The role of the state – NHS and Department for Work and Pensions – is important since losing friends, family, community connections is very often part of the mental ill health experience.

Hate crimes against the disabled, sanctions, universal credit pushing people into debt, are common experiences for those of us with mental health conditions.

These events push us back into crisis due to fears of becoming homeless, not having money to pay for food and heating. Disabled single people and single parents suffer these pressures more than most.

Reassessments for Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independent Payment, with form-filling and stressful interviews repeated every year, often retraumatising claimants.

Many of us don’t know our rights to paper-based assessments and special considerations during these processes due to our ill health, making access to in-patient beds more vital than ever.

Private hospitals were not much used in the 1990s and I was able to self-refer. Access to a local hospital bed saved my life many times. Being able to ask for help and get it has supported my own improvement in health.

Cutting stay length, building my self-management skills over time also saves the NHS and social care money. I question the legality of closing / freezing bed numbers.

Health parity seems to have been forgotten. Building new units with fewer / same number of beds removes a vital element of care that people with severe mental health problems depend on.

Is it right to force people to suffer in silence isolated at home? The least we should be able to expect is to have access to hospital care, a place of safety, when the pressures become too much and we are unable to care safely for ourselves.

Those with physical ill health would not expect to be told to stay at home with life-threatening health crisis. Nor to be forced to stay on chaotic frightening wards when detained for their own protection.

With so much pressure, the wards are even more violent, frightening and untherapeutic than ever before. Cramming more beds into overcrowded wards is not something to be proud of.

Many of us with mental ill health find it impossible to access in-patient care when we need it. We are made to wait until our conditions are so severe we are forcibly admitted or “sectioned”.

This results in deeper crises and slower recovery with longer stays on wards. This is much more expensive and traumatic than early intervention with hospital in-patient care.

That means changes to the benefits policy too, which in recent years has caused the greatest increase in mental health crises many professionals have seen in decades.

E JOHNSTON
NW6