PPlog

Show Time! A celebration of Youth Forum experiences and achievements is on Thursday at 17:45 -  Well I’m leaving here at 5.15pm and I’m soon joining the tumultuous traffic (both ways) on the A143. The Celebration is at ‘OPEN,’ right on the corner of Bank Plain in Norwich, not a good place to be parking, especially at this time of day, but I know it well as we rehearsed here early in 2012 with the 200 saxophones project and I know there is a single disabled parking space, usually vacant, right after the bus stop on the corner just before the OPEN entrance. Nose to tail in the traffic, I’ve finally got here at just about 6pm. Damn! Shaky of memory I’m in the wrong lane following a double decker and carried by the traffic - can’t change lanes and I’m already on Bank Plain stuck in a jam behind the bus with the other way traffic making solid crawl. I’m now being shuttled along Bank Plain. “Never mind, I’ll turn left at the lights and go round again - not a lot of time lost.” BLAST! ...

I thought it well worth copying this onto PPLOG: The truth about NHS privatisation has been exposed. An undercover investigation has found shocking care failures by private health business Care UK. It's been caught leaving dangerously ill patients waiting for hours, and using work experience students instead of nurses. [1] This is what happens when private companies get their hands on our NHS. Care UK boasts that they are the single biggest business helping to privatise the NHS. [2] If we can kick them out of our NHS, it'll be a major blow to the government's privatisation project. Huge public outcry will pile pressure on hospital bosses to shut the door on Care UK - at every hospital they approach. Can you sign the petition to stop Care UK making a profit out of our hospitals? Your name will be added to a petition where you live to prove that Care UK aren't wanted anywhere near our local NHS. https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/kick-out-care-uk Local fights for our NHS c...

From Andrew Roberts http://studymore.org.uk/ studymore@studymore.org.uk telephone: 020 8 986 5251 mobile 07505527755 home address: 177 Glenarm Road, London, E5 ONB The next meeting of the Survivor History Group  will be on Wednesday 29.7.2015 at 1pm-4pm (ish) at Together, 12 Old Street, London,  EC1V 9BE.  Food and drink to reward those who come. Everyone is very welcome at meetings of the Survivor History Group. I am circulating a report on modern Bethlem based on Jennifer Walke's presentation at the last meeting and materials provided by Jennifer. Please note her comment on the report: "Your draft  is largely fine as far as I can see, except that Bethlem was never solely a private hospital, but, in its marketing etc, increasingly targeted middle-class patients who may otherwise have sought private care."  The group minuted thanks to Jennifer for all the help she has given to our history project. Modern Bethlem includes the recently opened Museum of the Mind, w...

Watching the ROFA Sheffield conference online today it struck me that there are similarities with what the National Survivor User Network (NSUN - www.nsun.org.uk ) has been, and still is doing, in developing a national (England) network of mental health service user led organisations. Since its own inaugural conference in 2007 the accumulation of knowledge and useable experience has been weighty and sometimes valuable. The ball has overcome the initial political and social inertia and is rolling well. It seems a crying shame that there is a schism between NSUN and the aspirations of the Reclaiming Our Futures (ROFA) Sheffield conference. I can’t help thinking that NSUN has done much of the hard work organising and drawing together an increasing bond with many MH user led organisations (ULOs). If I’m right then ROFA must gain tremendously from joining with NSUN in their common cause. ROFA can learn a great deal to their advantage in this respect and NSUN could be a lot richer from the b...

The next meeting of the Survivor History Group  will be on Wednesday 29.7.2015 at 1pm-4pm (ish) at Together, 12 Old Street, London,  EC1V 9BE.  Food and drink to reward those who come. Could everyone shout from the nearest window "Everyone is very welcome at meetings of the Survivor History Group"?  Thank you. We have a planned discussion of "Mental Health Service Users in Research: Critical Sociological Perspectives" edited by Patsy Staddon. http://studymore.org.uk/sshbib.htm#Staddon Several members are reading this and we agreed that each would report back on an aspect of the book of their own choosing. I will be very happy to receive written comments if you wish. We may also have a discussion of "Splitting in Two: Mad Pride and Punk Rock Oblivion" by Robert Dellar http://studymore.org.uk/sshbib.htm#Dellar led by Frank Bangay and a presentation of "Standing up to madness - An autobiography" by its author, Nelsy http://studymore.org.uk/mpu.htm#N...