Mental health patients find it ‘impossible to get help’ amid Manchester care crisis: ‘It makes you ill’

Craig Hamilton was not eating, washing or getting out of bed when his psychiatrist discharged him after two and a half years on a waiting list for mental health support. He felt abandoned by the services.

“I probably didn’t get out of bed for three days at a time, not even for a coffee. I lost a lot of weight. It was a very dark time,” he recalls. “I felt failed by them. And it’s hard to say that because they’ve helped us out so much in the past.”

Hamilton is one of three patients with bipolar disorder and other mental health conditions who have spoken to the Big Issue about their experiences of Greater Manchester’s mental health services following our reporting on the alleged “crisis” in care.

Read more:

• Patients are dying and facing ‘horrible tragedies’ due to Manchester’s mental health care crisis, staff say
• Nearly half of young Brits say health issues will push them out of work. How can we cope without them?
• Our approach to mental health isn’t working – here’s what needs to change

NHS mental health workers in Manchester claimed the lack of staff and funding has led to “multiple horrible tragedies” including preventable deaths.

Dr John Mulligan, a Unite union representative and clinical psychologist specialising in early intervention for psychosis in Manchester, said “the whole secondary care services are in an absolutely diabolical situation”.

Patients like Hamilton are feeling the impact. The 50-year-old has needed support from mental health services since his early 20s, when he was hospitalised for six months, and he continued to need help for years until his mental health grew stable. He found a job as a support worker and volunteered at mental health charities.

But around three years ago, he had a breakdown. Hamilton could feel his mental health deteriorating and says he “tried to get help but it’s impossible”. He says he was put on a waiting list, unallocated to any support.

Freedom of information request data from the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust shows there are more than 650 unallocated patients within secondary care services. They spend an average of 236.7 days – nearly eight months – waiting for support.

Around 10 people have died while unallocated to mental health support over the last five years, while 63 have been hospitalised while in the trust’s ‘waiting well’ scheme since 2022.

Hamilton claims he waiting for support for more than two years. “I probably didn’t leave my bedroom for near on a year,” he says. He adds that he felt “left alone and a bit bitter” that he did not get the care he needed. He was able to get some psychotherapy after two years, which has helped his mental health, but there was no “timely care”.

A group of employees in the early intervention team at Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust spent months striking to demand more support and funding for their services, backed by unions Unite and Unison. They recently accepted a deal of £750,000, followed by a recurrent £1 million in subsequent years, equivalent to 21 additional staff members.

Carol Harris, chief operating officer for Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, says: “The Greater Manchester system has a strategic plan for the transformation of mental health services which includes enhanced community models of care, with a focus on early intervention, prevention and a person-centred, integrated care approach. 

“Despite the pressures the NHS and GMMH is under, continued negotiations have resulted in commissioners ring-fencing new recurrent funding specifically for early intervention services. We have submitted a compelling business case that demonstrates the outcomes we will achieve in terms of quality and performance and have already started to recruit new positions.”

Harris added that the trust has engaged with a national expert to help focus on the clinical capacity needed to meet patient demand at pace and ensure decisions have impact.

Claire Miller, a Unison representative who works in the Manchester early intervention psychosis team said the deal is a “substantial investment”, but there remain fears that issues within mental health services will persist in Manchester and across the country.

Another mental health patient, Vinny, says his experiences of the mental health services have been “disgusting”. “It does make you ill just working the system,” he adds. 

The 56-year-old had a care coordinator when he was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder 14 years ago but she retired after two years and was never replaced. “Basically, I’ve been on my own,” he says.

“Unless they’ve been in the system, people don’t realise just how difficult it is being in the system, especially mentally. It just adds to your anxiety. It’s hard to describe. Being ill and being under the hospital, it can make you even worse.

“They just seem to have lost compassion for the actual patient. You’re not seen as a person, just as a patient. You very rarely see the same doctor more than three times.”

An NHS Greater Manchester spokesperson says: “Access to timely mental health care is a priority for NHS Greater Manchester and we recognise the distress long waits can cause. Demand for mental health services is rising nationally, but we’re working to reduce waiting times, expand community support, and improve care for people with long-term conditions like bipolar disorder.”

Vinny has had periods where he has not been able to sleep for five or six days. He struggles with his memory and concentration, and he falls regularly and has accidents. During one episode, he put his hand into the boiling water of a kettle.

“You do daft things like this, but actually a lot of things you don’t realise you’ve done until people tell you,” Vinny says.

He feels as though he has been “dismissed” and “abandoned” by healthcare professionals. He would like to have an assigned doctor who he can see more regularly on a long-term basis.

“Personally, I don’t really have any hopes because I’m just getting on with it, but if you’re asking trust wise, I’d like them to improve the services. We want empathy. You can be ill, and the way the system works makes you more ill,” he adds.

Rachel Tulley, another patient in her 50s, agrees. She says “the care coordinators and community psychiatric nurses were brilliant” when first started using the services 40 years ago when she was diagnosed with eating disorders and depression. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“In them days, they were so caring and kind,” Tulley remembers of mental health services years ago. “In the last few years, so many of us have got no support. I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve still got my eating disorder and my bipolar has been uncontrolled for a while. I’ve got a care coordinator, though I don’t see her very often.”

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust claims that at the point of acceptance to the early intervention service, individuals are allocated a worker within 24 hours and engaged with care.

Harris said this includes “regular appointments” with a care coordinator to “review needs and build skills and resilience, input to expand on social activities via support staff, housing welfare support, appointments with a psychiatrist and medication support”.

“Manchester EIS also has a team of psychologists, therapists, employment support workers and physical health staff to deliver holistic care towards recovery and the new investment will support us to strengthen this,” Harris added.

However, this has not been the experience of the patients who spoke to the Big Issue.

A few years ago, Tulley was very ill but nobody from the services had come to see her at home. Her friend was “begging” people to come see her and, eventually when she faced a manic episode, the police came to her house.

She describes a “traumatic” experience of being handcuffed, held down, screaming at them not to put her in a van, and being taken to the local police station. She was then sectioned and spent the next few months in hospital.

“It’s a lonely world when you come out of hospital,” Tulley says. “Adapting to real life is crucial and there’s nobody to help you.”

She adds: “It’s the community services that are the worst. They’re not putting any money in it. We’re forgotten. But don’t they realise that prevention is better than cure? If they spent more money in the community, it wouldn’t wreck as many lives.”

Tulley, Hamilton and Vinny are all members of a peer support group for people suffering with severe mental health conditions in Manchester. When the group, Community Works, first started more than 10 years ago, each of the members had a care coordinator allocated to them, but now only three of the 35 members of the group receive this support.

They say being part of the group, which is led by former community psychiatric nurse Annabel Marsh, is a lifeline. 

“I cook on Friday with Annabel and we feed everybody a hot meal. Some people can’t even cook for themselves. Some of them have terrible lives and they can’t cope. They can’t clean, not because they don’t want to. They’re immensely unwell. They live in homes that you wouldn’t believe. 

“If I didn’t do what I did for that group and have all them friends… I’m very fortunate. My friends in the group are my life. If you took the group off me, I’d be dead,” Tulley says.

Evidence suggests that Greater Manchester is not the only area facing a crisis in its mental health services. NHS data analysed by charity Rethink Mental Illness shows that 16,522 people are still waiting for mental health treatment after 18 months.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Too often, people experiencing mental health crises are not getting the support or care they deserve, and this government is taking action to change that.”

They claimed to be transforming mental health services backed by an extra £680m in government funding – “hiring more staff, delivering more talking therapies, and getting waiting lists down”. 

It has also launched one of the world’s first 24/7 mental health crisis support services via NHS 111 and announced a £26m investment in new crisis centres. 

But Tulley, Hamilton and Vinny feel that more must be done to protect lives.

“People have to realise that they need to put more money in community services and less money into state of the art things,” Tulley says. “I’d like better support for staff and training, and care for people that are just getting swept under the carpet. It really gets me cross.”

If you, or someone you know, is in a mental health crisis, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option It’s available 24 hours a day, you’ll speak to a mental health professional who can help you find the right support. If there’s an immediate risk to life ring 999 or go to A&E.

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