PPlog

Andrew Roberts of the Survivor History Network sends out this small plea: The last month has been very difficult for me as it is not only my most difficult annual period at work (reaching its end on Monday) every year but also a period when my whole work environment, and that of my colleagues, is changing and I have to redesign and relearn everything (That is how it feels). This process of redesign and relearning carries on throughout the summer. Many people in the Survivor History Group know about this and I am grateful to those who have refrained from asking me to do things during this period. The number of things I am being asked to do is, however, large and during this past few weeks it seems to have increased quite dramatically. I do not even get the time to think what I can do and cannot do. All I do is respond to some requests, knowing that others are being ignored. I have been trying to say no to requests I will not be able to fulfil, but some of the requests ...

On Saturday last Bob Blizzard, ex MP for Lowestoft, organised a demonstration against the plans for Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust to cut 17 beds from the NHS dementia unit at Carlton Court in Carlton Colville, near Lowestoft. I went and supported the demonstration. We had some initial problems; explained in this e mail to Ed Bober, the Secretary of Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts: “HI Ed. No doubt you will have read about protests about services beds cuts by the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust. The latest is the bed cuts at Carlton Court. Now this hospital is sited over the border in Suffolk but it serves Gt Yarmouth too. I think our Coalition should cover health as well as social care and welfare. There is a Demonstration against the cuts at Carlton Court 12 noon on Saturday. I'm going representing DPAC Norfolk (I have past connections with the unit and its not far from where I live) but I'm a little bit embarrassed as a retired UNISON member that the unio...

Another valuable posting from Andrew Roberts of Survivor History and research (studymore@studymore.org.uk) I managed to get to the last day of the Hackney museum exhibition CREATIVE JOURNEYS Responses To Mental Health in Hackney, Present and Past 12 February - 25 May Core Arts, the group that organised this, have created a book about it. The printed version costs £30, but the e-book is free. I attach your copy. For general survivor history see the creative journey of Frank Bangay (dealing with MPU in 1970s London and PROMPT and CAPO in the 1980s) and the Mad Pride notes of Mark Roberts, which bring the story up to the present resistance to welfare reform. Every story in this book is (in my opinion) worth reading many times, and every piece of art worth looking at many times. Some of the art work was much more effective in the exhibition, but I have found other pieces more effective when I looked at the book which is here on the Core Arts website Issues relating to...

THIS IS WELL WORTH POSTING IN FULL HERE: *JUDICIAL REVIEW JUDGEMENT * *SENIOR JUDGES RULE THAT THE WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS* The Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN) welcomes the judgement handed down today by judges in the Upper Tribunal in the case of the two claimants with mental health problems who have challenged the manner in which people with mental health difficulties are assessed for their fitness for work through the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). The court held that the WCA process disadvantages people with mental health problems because they have greater difficulty than others in explaining to the Atos assessor how their condition affects their fitness to work. The solution is for Atos and the DWP to seek evidence from the claimant´s doctors and others in the community that know what they can do. But the DWP have consistently refused to take this step. Those who have been claiming that t...

National Disabilities Conference 2013 4th July 2013 at One Drummond Gate, Victoria, SW1V 2QQ » DPAC : 'via Blog this'

The United Nations Enable Newsletter is prepared by the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (DSPD/DESA) with input from UN offices, agencies, funds and programmes, as well as from civil society organizations, including organizations of persons with disabilities. It is also available online at: www.un.org/disabilities. In this issue: - Status of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - Highlights from the UN system - Upcoming calendar of events - Other news STATUS OF THE CRPD 130ratifications and 155 signatories to the CRPD 76ratifications and 91 signatories to its Optional Protocol (OP) 6th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the CRPD The 6th session of the Conference of States Parties (COSP6) will be held from 17to19 July 2013. The theme for this session is: “Ensuring adequate standard of living: empowerment and participation of persons with disabilities within the framework of the CRPD”. The su...

This is an example of things to come in the NHS - ever-increasing encouragement of private services. Mental health and the market | Primary Care Commissioning : 'via Blog this'