I would like to firstly thank everybody for sending in
there comments. I would also like to acknowledge the
dissatisfaction that certain people feel – this is why we
are here… to help improve!
I appreciate it is not acceptable for tax paying citizens
to have to go abroad for health care – it defeats the whole
objective of being an active citizen and the adult health
directorate certainly regards everybody from all minorities
to be active citizens.
The action points that I shall take from this event will be:
· The lack of use of interpreters at the local GP services –
and with psychological interventions, resulting to the inability
for Portuguese users to articulate and express themselves
· The feeling of being excluded from services
· Extra support to support Mario and the Portuguese project.
These comments and points will be passed onto the BME
service user representative who will express these concerns
at the next mental health service user meeting which is eminent
in the middle of October. Equally so I would like to inform
all the participants of this event that a BME ‘Service
Delivery Group’, will be reforming in January 2009, which
will include commissioners, managers and stakeholders to
the mental health services. These issues will be raised at this
meeting which in the past has been very successful in rectifying
and problem solving BME issues in mental health.
I will feed back the comments from the BME service user
representative onto this page and onto a separate event
to keep all parties informed of the actions that will be
further taken to these issues.
I would just like to remind people that this service is here
to enforce change as a result of many government consultations
and inquiries – hence the ‘Real Voices’ document (2003) –
Department of health, and the ‘Inside Outside’ report.
The BME team has had many successes in raising the profile
of BME issues and hopes to continue to do so as long as people
keep us informed and are not afraid to come forward
to instigate change.
