I read with interest the letters about psychiatric care in the NHS (11 July), prompted by Rachel Clarke’s review of Bella Jackson’s book Fragile Minds (A furious assault on NHS psychiatry, 30 June). I have not read the book but, as a long-term psychiatric patient, I would like to make two points.
First, care naturally varies in quality, suitability and success. Following three years in unsatisfactory private care (after many previous years in NHS care), I have happily returned to the NHS. I find its care superior, but hamstrung by limited resources, which can mean waiting many months for an appointment. But I have never been treated badly, as Jackson suggests is common, even when in the worst state.
Second, I was struck by what Jackson says a junior doctor said to her (as quoted by Clarke): “‘Let’s quetiapine them today!’ And I asked him why quetiapine, and he said, ‘They put you in the best hotels for conferences.’” As Clarke says, this is ludicrous, and certainly the only time I have heard “quetiapine” used as a verb, which strikes me as improbable.
Quetiapine has been a generic drug since 2012 (ie open to any company to manufacture and market, just as, say, paracetamol is). I cannot believe that a junior doctor would prescribe it in the hope of being put up in a “best hotel” for a conference.
It has long been the first-line treatment for psychosis, and for good reason: it works. I have been on quetiapine for 15 years. It’s not an enviable position to be in, but I am glad it exists, and grateful to those who have – quite rightly – prescribed it to me.
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• I was disappointed to read that Cathy Wield was “subjected to increasingly damaging interventions, including electroconvulsive therapy” (Letters, 11 July). I was treated with ECT for severe depression (with my full consent) in 2006 and it saved my life. In subsequent years when I had relapses, it again was highly effective as a treatment and I recovered fully, and have been well for the last five years. I would hope that patients won’t dismiss ECT as a potential treatment for depression based on its negative portrayal in the press, but be guided by NHS professionals who prescribe what they believe is best for the individual patient.
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