NHS believe in chief Lisa Rodrigues on why she"s shouting about mental health | Mary O"Hara

Lisa Rodrigues, chief executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Believe in, says her following role will be as a psychological health campaigner. Photograph: Andrew Hasson

In direction of the finish of last 12 months Lisa Rodrigues, a longstanding chief executive of a large NHS mental well being believe in, was driving home from perform when some thing harrowing happened. “I was acquiring some horrible stomach pains. I could not see properly. I wished to crash my auto. I really had to [attempt hard to] stop myself undertaking that.” She made it property securely but says she “cried for 3 days and 3 nights”.

Rodrigues was in the midst of the first severe episode of clinical depression she had skilled in virtually two decades but it was particularly important, she says, simply because the crisis point occurred weeks soon after she had manufactured the selection to “come out” about her background of mental well being issues.

That someone in such a senior management place in any organisation decides to speak openly about living with depression is uncommon and Rodrigues, 58, whose most trying times were in her teens and early 20s, acknowledges that speaking out was tough. As she talks about her operate and occupation, the last 13 many years of which have been as chief executive of Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, a provider of mental well being, substance misuse, learning disability and prison healthcare companies, she exudes the fervour of somebody established to bring her own experiences to bear.

She says, as retirement approached, she realised that talking about currently being in a demanding, senior position with a history of depression could have value. “I was just about to leave the NHS and that I desired to speak about the reality that currently being a leader doesn’t suggest to say that you have to be ideal,” she says.

The concept that residing with a mental illness would exclude a person from a work they were capable of carrying out demands to be challenged, she suggests. “My experience of learning to control my very own emotions and deal with what I have just dealt with – I feel I’m a far better particular person for it with out a doubt,” she adds.

Reactions to her coming out have been primarily encouraging, but some individuals commented that she “was the extremely last individual” they would have expected to have psychological health issues, or remarked, “You’re not on antidepressants are you?” as if there was anything incorrect with it.

“There’s this whole pill shaming issue that goes on”, she says of the stigma attached to taking medication for a mental illness. “If you have received cancer and you come forward for treatment no person judges you. To be frank I would be dead if I hadn’t taken antidepressants due to the fact I was so low.”

She argues that, in spite of some progress in latest years, it is stigma across society that is a principal lead to of damaging attitudes and also affects behaviour and the way psychological well being companies are funded and organised.

“Why is it that mental well being services in this country only get twelve% of the assets that we have accessible, offered that it is at least 25% of the condition burden? I feel we begin with the stigma,” she argues. “If we can start by speaking about the stigma … that implies individuals are far more most likely to invest in providers to aid individuals people have a better daily life.”

What about the monetary strain on the health service in spite of ministerial overtures around “parity” of care for people employing mental overall health companies? Rodrigues says plainly: “Put your money in which your mouth is, politicians.”

Her analysis of the mental healthcare technique is measured and illuminating. It is clear she has relished the hard process of operating a complicated overall health believe in in a time of immense modify, and believes she has helped increase some aspects of healthcare, including advocating for far more integration amongst mental and bodily provision, in distinct for older folks.

The impact of the economic downturn and rewards modifications have been “really substantial”, Rodrigues says, simply because the most vulnerable men and women are underneath huge stress. “We have got the advantage changes affecting patients and so also the increase in charges for items and also the adjustments in housing advantage. So they’ve received a triple whammy. When we are seeing them they’re far more unwell and have a tendency to keep in hospital longer.”

In other regions cuts to funding coupled with modifications to the commissioning of youngster and adolescent mental healthcare are specially problematic, she suggests, since “early intervention” is so crucial to longer phrase psychological wellbeing and to reducing the demands on “other components of the system” this kind of as A&ampE and the criminal justice technique additional down the line. The previous 12 months has observed a “severe” jump of 10% nationally in the number of youthful folks accessing services, but there are “no hospital beds for youngsters and young individuals anyplace in the country at any 1 time” to accommodate these in crisis.

Although nevertheless evidently passionate about how the health technique operates, there is a sense that Rodrigues is steadily coming to terms with moving on and segueing into the role of campaigner. “For the up coming third of my life I will be campaigning about this stuff,” she replies. “I will not want to be operating it. I want to publish about it. I want to shout about it simply because I believe I can make fairly a big difference.”

But what helps make her believe folks will pay attention to what she has to say? “I will make certain they do. I’m really difficult to say no to,” she asserts with a smile.

Age 58.

Lives Brighton, east Sussex.

Family Married, two grown-up children.

Training Horsham substantial school for Girls, West Sussex, Dunottar school, Reigate, Surrey University of Sussex, BA in psychology, BA and MA, public sector management.

Profession 2001-present: chief executive officer, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Believe in (and predecessor wellness and social care trusts) June-Dec 2001: task director, psychological health, West Sussex Wellness Authority (HA) 2000–01: director, emergency arranging, South East Regional Office, NHS Executive 1995–2000: exec director of nursing, South Downs Overall health NHS Believe in 1990–95: wellness visitor, South Downs Overall health NHS Trust (and predecessor authorities) 1987–90: health visitor, East Sussex HA 1979–82: health visitor, Brighton HA 1977–78: employees nurse, Excellent Ormond Street Hospital.

Awards CBE for solutions to the NHS.

Interests Jam, bicycles, Brighton and Hove Albion FC, reading through and creating.

NHS believe in chief Lisa Rodrigues on why she"s shouting about mental health | Mary O"Hara

Shouting about much more NHS funding will not make the government cough up

Shouting about a funding crisis in the NHS isn’t going to support. Photograph: Alamy

There is a unsafe delusion taking hold of some components of the NHS – that if the services shouts loudly ample, and usually enough, that it requirements a lot more money, it will get what it would like. It won’t. Clinicians and managers will have to work out the remedies themselves.

As the finances of a expanding amount of trusts slide out of manage, the prospects for the NHS in 2015 are increasingly currently being debated in capital letters, the word CRISIS getting brandished like a Daily Mail headline. Realising the rhetoric stakes were obtaining increased, the Royal College of Basic Practitioners overreached themselves with the preposterous claim that GP practices have been at risk of “extinction”.

The King’s Fund’s quarterly monitoring report this month uncovered that just 16% of NHS believe in finance directors are assured of reaching economic stability in the coming monetary 12 months.

There is anecdotal evidence of a belief on some boards that if adequate providers get into sufficient difficulty the government will be forced to bail them out. Arguing that “we’re going into deficit because we will not compromise on high quality” may possibly sound like the moral high ground but it can quickly flip into a clinical functionality hole.

The hope that the government will come up with much more cash has to be set against the declared intention of the two Labour and the Conservatives to get rid of the deficit in the following parliament.

A one particular-off NHS spending budget enhance followed by a additional period of flat funding would not resolve any lengthy-term difficulties, while genuine phrase development at the very same time as attempting to eradicate the deficit would inflict even more deep cuts on other providers even though even now requiring considerable tax rises.

All governments rustle up politically valuable handouts, but they are hardly ever new money and will not adjust the extended-phrase image. The £3.8bn Better Care Fund, pitched to the public as assisting the two the NHS and social care, effectively marked the finish of the NHS funding ringfence although increasing the strain on clinical commissioning groups and hospitals.

New funds can even be a dilemma – commissioners resent being pushed by the NHS Trust Advancement Authority to maintain failing suppliers afloat, while clinical commissioning groups will privately complain that winter pressures income has often undermined attempts to get companies to tackle the underlying brings about of A&ampE backlogs.

In the longer term, as the latest report on care funding by the Reform believe tank has highlighted, escalating NHS revenue from industrial pursuits this kind of as selling health-related products overseas will need to have to be looked at. This will no doubt be resisted by some for ideological motives, but definitely it is greater to have pragmatic funds rather than a principled deficit.

But more right away there is a flicker of optimism in attempts by managerial and clinical leaders to yoke together clinical practice with available cash. Two sides of the same coin, published by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Faculty of Health-related Leadership and Management, the Healthcare Monetary Management Association and the NHS Confederation, rams home the importance of clinicians taking accountability for extracting highest value from their work.

“We can not overstate the relevance of bringing clinical and economic colleagues closer together to boost worth,” the report asserts. The fact that this demands to be spelt out is testament to the surprising disconnect in several hospitals and GP surgeries amongst what clinicians do and how much money there is to shell out for it.

The time is prolonged previous when clinicians and economic managers can talk about their very own priorities in isolation. They need to be seeking discussions about the benefits to individuals of distinct therapies, the expense of funding one particular support over another, and the place the value really lies in the method.

This is difficult territory for the NHS, due to the fact it calls for honesty about rationing, waste and efficacy. But these debates now need to take place, and urgently.

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Shouting about much more NHS funding will not make the government cough up