Councillor Michael Lilley has said that mental health services on the Isle of Wight are ‘broken’ and has called for truth, reconciliation, listening, apologies and hope.
The Green councillor for Ryde East has spoken out as part of Time to Talk Day, a national programme calling for change in taboo attitude towards mental health. Cllr Lilley has been a campaigner for improved mental health services across the country and the world for over 40 years and continues to campaign on the Island.
Earlier this week Michael attended a meeting of a group of local residents who have experience of mental health issues – he was moved to talk out.
Speaking today, on Time to Talk Day, Councillor Lilley says:
“Time to Talk is an opportunity to talk the truth and the truth on the Isle of Wight is that our mental health services are broken. There has been a past denial within the public sector for many years and Islanders have paid a serious cost and infringement of their basic human rights. One thing we should celebrate from this grim truth is that at last the public sector, the IW NHS Trust, IW Clinical Commissioning Group and Isle of Wight Council are now publically saying this. It took the CQC (Care Quality Commission) to last year rule our mental health services were inadequate for the truth to come out”.
The NHS IW Clinical Commissioning Group presented a new blue print for mental health services to the Isle of Wight Council’s Adult Social Care and Health Policy and Scrutiny Committee at its 22nd January meeting. This plan, if implemented, would radically change services says Cllr Lilley.
Councillor Lilley calls for truth, reconciliation, listening, apologies and hope:
“I celebrate the new team of committed mental health professionals who are starting to implement changes, but I still hear daily tragic stories of how Island citizens have lived with poor services for so long they have lost any belief that things will improve. They have lost hope.
Article continues below this advertisement “The reality is all these changes are being made in a backdrop of major cuts to services. We need a truth and reconciliation Citizen’s panel on the Island where people can really talk and share their pain and real lived experience. We need the heads of services to publicly apologise for the past so that people can move forward. We need not just change but revolution and the people need to be in charge of their own services and lives. We have to start giving genuine hope back”.
Isle of Wight Council in 2017 signed up to the Local Authority Mental Health Challenge which states the Council proactively listens to people of all ages and backgrounds about what they need for better mental health. The Isle of Wight Council appointed Councillor Clare Mosdell to be the Council’s First Mental Health Champion. Cllr Lilley, who advocated for the Council to sign up to the challenge, calls for all local residents who wish to talk and have a story and view about mental health services to contact Claire as she is there to listen.
