Letter
Dear Sir,
In your Winter 1971 issue of Mind’ you published an apologia for the Social Services Departments under the psuedonym ‘Dymphna’ *n which it is stated that the departments are going to get a bad Press during the next year or two because ‘there are a large number of MP’s who are already baying away like sonorous bloodhounds about shortcomings in the Social Services’. In defence of her establishment Dymphna writes of the superhuman task which has been lrnposed, the terrific costs, both financial and emotional, and the vast amounts of time, money and energy which are necessarily being dissipated.
This, of course, may not come as any surprise to those-who greeted *he Seebohm Report of 1968 with some reservation. Then we were being told by proponents of the proposals that the creation of one super-department would cut out so much duplication of effort that efficiency would be immediately enhanced. True new responsibilities have been added, but have we not had several years’ warning and reasonable time to prepare ourselves?
Dymphna gives an impressive list of the statutory duties for which the Department is now responsible and herein lies my chief criticism of her case. She goes on to say, ‘Finally, as if all this was not enough, the Government have decided virtually to resuscitate the Mental Health Act of 1959’. The implication in this statement that the provisions of this Act have remained in suspension of animation since 1959 is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and reveals an appalling ignorance of the progress in community psychiatric services which has been made.
I have been in the practice of psychiatry for 20 years, I have seen the enormous changes which have unfolded. For the last 8 years I have, in addition to my own area clinical responsibilities, borne the ultimate responsibility for the nature and scope of the psychiatric treatment services for over a third of a million people. I dare lay claim to know something about the ‘scene’. To convey the impression, as Dymphna does, that it is all going to begin now is a piece of monumental arrogance.
What I and my colleagues are rather more concerned about is our suspicion that since April 1st, 1971 there has been some deterioration in the service built up slowly and painfully in the years before, and in Dymphna’s own words, ‘From the client’s point of view, nothing is performed better now than it was before amalgamation.’
We sincerely hope that this is but a temporary state of affairs. Yours faithfully. Dr A. G. Fullerton Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director.
Barnsley Hall Hospital, Bromsgrove, Worcs.
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