Improving services and support for older people with mental health ...

Improving services and support for older people with mental health problems
Living Well in Later Life observed that:
“Older people who have made the transition between [adult and older people’s
services] when they reached 65 have said that there were noticeable differences
in the quality and range of services available.” 178
For some, mental health services are entirely withdrawn when they turn 65, leaving
them with inadequate support at a time when their mental health needs have not
diminished and may in fact be increasing.
“[What makes things worse is] being kicked out of my drop-in
centre because of my age. Mental illness does not go away
at 65!” 179
A person with bipolar disorder who has just turned 65 may be told that she can no
longer use the day service she has been using because she is now ‘too old’.
“The thing was I went to this service for several years, on and off,
and then to my horror I discovered that at 65, they no longer take
people because ‘it’s not for pensioners’.” 180
The abrupt loss of support can have devastating effect:
“Going to a group and mixing with others who had similar
problems as me was good. And having someone to talk to
– I liked my support worker. But I can’t get that now because of
my age… I feel alone and isolated. I feel as if there’s no reason
to get up. I feel terrible… I feel suicidal. I was going to harm
myself recently.” 181
For those transferred into an older adult mental health service, the situation may not be
much better. The older adult service may not be appropriate for their needs, or it may
result in a reduced service, as described by one old age psychiatrist:
“Adult mental health teams have better access to occupational therapy,
occupational therapy assistants, day centres in the community, psychotherapy
services... So when patients are transferred over to us they will sometimes get
a reduced level of care. For example, a patient with chronic schizophrenia [was]
transferred to us from the adult services [where he] was getting an occupational
therapy assistant visiting once or twice a week, a community psychiatric nurse
visiting weekly and a consultant visiting every two weeks. Once transferred, the
consultant and community psychiatric nurse will visit [once a] month, if you
are lucky.” 182
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