How carers can help
As an informal carer you have a vital role in reducing the impact that a diagnosis of severe mental illness has on your relative and the family in general.
Some families have found the following methods can help...
- by learning how best to support your relative as they learn to manage the symptoms of their illness, the informal carer can promote recovery
- by seeking information about treatment and care and developing strategies for working with the medical and mental health teams, the informal carer can enhance the continuity of care
- by raising issues, alerting the care teams to new problems and suggesting possible solutions, the carer can reduce the risk of crises
- by being assertive, challenging decisions or making complaints where appropriate, perhaps with the support of advice or advocacy workers, the carer can get proper access to services and improve the quality of what is available
- by participating in local consulatations about services, the informal carer can contribute to the development of new services and help maintain the existing ones under threat
- by contacting the Healthcare Commission when it carries out inspections of local Trust's, the carer can alert the inspectors to issues which should be investigated
- by writing to local councillors an MPs with accurate descriptions of inadequacies within the system, it may be possible to encourage changes of law and practice in the future.
