Poor management
So far I have going round in circles trying to get my husband a referral to the appropriate service so he can get an appointment to be seen by a professional. the over the phone assessment took place a few months ago and he was diagnosed as needing help and was promised a referral to community links but after making numerous calls to IAPT I am still in the dark as to when my husband will be seen by the relevant professional. I spoke to a manger at IAPT at the beginning of September and explained how I had been told that the referral had been made four weeks ago to community links and i should phone them to obtain an appointment for my husband but on ringing community links have not received any such referral. I also told the manager that I had been sent a letter saying that we were not receiving her calls so she is discharging my husband when we had not received any calls or messages. At this point I was very disappointed as i had made the referral in April 18 and was concerned that my husband was not receiving the help that he needed as he had beed assessed as needing help. However the manager was quite understanding and understood my frustration so she promised that she would get someone to make the referral asap so they phoned my husband on the same day and went through a series of questions and assured my husband that the referral was going to be made on the same day. I waited for a month and had not heard anything so phoned IAPT yesterday to check the status of the referral and was shocked to hear that my husband had been discharged from IAPT as he was told to refer himself to community links. I was naturally left extremely disappointed yet again so i spoke to the manager (a different manager was available to the one I had spoken to in the past) who promised he would look into it and get back to me by the end of the day. I waited for a call till the end of the day but no call so I phoned IAPT again this morning asked for the manager, told the manager that i had been waiting for the call he had promised me by the end of the day to which his response was that he staff member should have called my husband. Any way I informed him that we had not received any call on which i was informed that the staff member had to refer my husband again yesterday to community links as there must have been a problem with the email system so community links had not achieved any of the previous referrals. At this point I told the manager that i believe IAPT have poorly managed my husband's case/referrals. His response was: Do you? My concern and frustration arises from the fact that IAPT is supposed to be helping people with anxiety and mental health disorders not adding to their anxiety and frustration and once a referral is made to them and they have carried out an assessment and identified the need for further treatment required they should be ensuring that the referrals are reaching the relevant bodies and not getting lost in the system as has happened twice in my husband's case. Not everyone who is identified as needing help to mange anxiety or a mental health problem has the support, skills and confidence to pursue the referrals and ring up and enquire about the progress of the referral. Referring yourself to a service like IAPT takes courage and for IAPT to let a patient drop through the system as has happened in our case twice is poor management and lack of care. How many vulnerable people are being neglected by the system and how many families are suffering? Mental health does not only affect one person in the family, it has a domino effect on everyone in the family, so I can only hope that no one else feels the frustration and disappointment we had to endure and our case was an isolated one and not a regular occurrence.