LETTERS Don't care, won't care
Sir: It is encouraging to have Mrs Bottom- ley confirm, in her response (Letters, 14 May) to Alasdair Palmer's excellent article on care in the community that 'our task is to ensure that those few who do need that level of support [intensive care] receive it'. It would have been more encouraging if Mrs Bottomley had gone on to explain how the policy is being implemented. I have tried to discover and failed.
I wrote to Mrs Bottomley in January 1993 asking how I could find a hospital that pro- vided long-term in-patient care for a relative for whom care in the community had failed.
The first response was a letter to my MP from one of her Secretaries of State, who restated the policy that 'people with mental illness should have access to all the services they need including long-term in-patient care', but did not answer my question.
Then after an interval of nine months came a letter from an official at the Department of Health (apparently unaware of the Secretary of State's letter) who said that the Department did not know how many beds were being provided for such patients or in which hospitals the beds were, and that it had no plans to find out or to set targets for the Health Authorities.
It is difficult to have faith in a policy when no steps are being taken to monitor whether it is being implemented. If the Department of Health does not take responsibility for ensuring that government policy on seriously mentally-ill people is implemented, who does? It is not good enough just to leave it to the Health Authorities.
Richard Masters
14 Wick Hollow, Glastonbury, Somerset
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