NHS Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Talking Therapies - Loughborough

abi

I decided to cancel my treatment based upon the fact that I was doing and felt better. However, I wonder about those who are in a more serious situation than me and are depending on this service.
I found the therapy odd and not that helpful. My therapist would often ask cryptic questions that would leave me confused rather than feeling supported. The support I received was no different to support from the institution I worked for, who were far more helpful with my issue.
Having appointments over the phone isn’t helpful either, I think for therapy to work there needs to be more human connection.

K H.

This service is not fit for purpose. People are encouraged to reach out to this service for mental health help, yet staff continually block people from accessing that help by constantly assessing you instead of actually providing any form of help or treatment. No communication between staff members means you constantly have to repeat everything said previously, which causes further anxiety and distress. Appointment times not kept, text confirmations not received, unhelpful and ill-trained telephone staff all add to the general feeling that you're banging your head against a brick wall trying to seek help down this route. Huge amounts of time and resources wasted. Better time management and an efficient assessment process and properly trained staff would enable this service to actually achieve what it's supposed to. Unfortunately, this service is completely useless if you're actually trying to access any form of practical help for mental health issues.

zeeshan P.

What a absolute waste of tax payers money.
I self referred to this service after my first session finished (few months after).The advisor was absolutely rude & not helpful. The service is for patients with mental health and they just make your mental health 100 times worse.
The lady i spoke to today was a absolute disaster who should not be working in mental health as it really triggered me and has caused by stress, anxiety & panic attacks.

I would not recommend to use this service and to tell your GP to refer to another company which i have spoken to today and shockingly the Dr said its not the first time this has happened.

Its been 7 hours since the call and its still causing me distress severely. I have a great family who are helping me.
I wonder what happens to people who do not have family and friends to talk to… this is why the suicidal rate is so high because of people like this unfortunately.

May we all find help soon with people who care of the job.

M S.

There are so many things wrong with this service and the fact both NHS & Vitaminds think this service is sufficient is mind blowing.

I self-referred myself to their service earlier this year after a traumatic and life changing event that had a big impact on my mental health. My first assessment phone call was good although I was disappointed by the 3 therapy options available as 2 out of 3 of the options are just online courses where you have little to no personal interaction with the actual therapist.

After reviewing my case I was told that I should try the online webinar first but that a note would be put on my case so that I could be referred to the 1 on 1 therapy once I’d finished the webinar.

I did the webinar. I found parts of it useful but at the same time it was just a PowerPoint presentation being read over Microsoft Teams. None of the information given related to my specific circumstances which is why I wanted the 1 on 1 therapy. Also most of the information is basic info that you could find on Google. Vitaminds should just pre-record the webinars and put them on YouTube instead of making people jump through hoops for basic CBT skills.

Once I finished the webinar I was called for a review. Based on what I was told previously about having a note on my case to transfer me to the 1 on 1 therapy I assumed this would be confirmed in this review phone call. That was not the case. I was basically told in the review phone call that I’d likely be discharged now and that they can’t help me with my struggles because it doesn’t ’fall under their remit’?!?!

The person reviewing my case insinuated that my score for depression/anxiety was “low” and that’s why I would be discharged but in the next sentence she said that my first assessment score was also low?! If my first score was low then why was I told I’d be referred for 1 on 1 therapy then?
To be honest, don’t get me started on the questionnaires because they are not fit for purpose at all. Half the questionnaire is about depression and half is about anxiety. I don’t really suffer from anxiety so I never would have scored high. How can you send someone a questionnaire to ‘score’ the severity of their mental health yet the questions are not even relevant to what they struggle with?

I also assumed the person reviewing my case would have read my case notes beforehand and would have had some context about the life event that pushed me to therapy in the first place but I realised half way through the call that she had no idea. I went through a life changing event and she’s giving me very trivial advice over the phone about taking a salt bath (I understand self care being an important part of mental health but considering my personal situation it just seemed to be totally irrelevant and trivial compared to my very serious and traumatic circumstances). I asked her to refer to my case notes, she couldn’t find them and I had to explain my traumatising situation again.
What I really want to know is how can you “review” someone’s case if you have ZERO context about their personal situation Essentially the “review” is based only on the questionnaire - the questionnaire that’s not fit for purpose in the first place. The whole system needs serious work if vitaminds actually want to HELP people which is what they’re supposed to be there for.

My takeaway is that vitaminds are not equipped to actually deal with peoples serious problems. If you have mild anxiety/depression maybe you’ll find there half-hearted attempt at a mental health service helpful but if you’ve been through anything traumatic don’t waste your time. They don’t care about your situation, they’re just ticking boxes.

Shaun

Had a good long chat today with a lady called Radhika, not a bad word to say, she was fantastic, it’s a subject that has taken me a long time to face up to and address but glad I have, so thank you Radhika for helping me with starting the journey of getting better.

Ano

* RE-POST - REVIEW HAD BEEN REMOVED

Disgusted.

Exactly the same experience as the other patient reviews.
No empathy, 'therapists' robotic, reading from a script.

Their main mode of treatment is a CBT website. -After waiting for 2 MONTHS - (WHY?)
Like someone else has said - you can get the more information from a book, or youtube

Only treat 'depression' -every other condition is done with CBT.
Im no health expert, but there are usually many contributing factors which lead to depression
and are concurrent with depression, and to flat-out refuse to even address these issues, let alone help with them is not acceptable.

Was told ‘ I can only help with depression. everything else is cbt.’
‘Have you heard of the samaritans’ !!!

What are these peoples credentials?

I know vitaminds is a private company.
Does that mean they are exempt from CQC examination

**REPLY : CQC?

Kimmyyy F.

It seems like there's a lot of responses from the company that read 'sorry' yet they see nothing wrong in the way they are treating people!!! Its not one size fits all for a multitude of different struggles & issues. Why would anyone email them with the experience theyve had when its clear that they see no wrong in there approach and the "odd" positive review is either from someone in their company or someone who has very low anxiety or depression at the minute. Clearly not equipped to help people with severe or life changing issues. The whole system is messed up & needs a complete independent review and overhaul.

No

Very sad. The initial phone call assesment was with someone who sounded annoyed when my answers did not fit into the 1 to 10 rating. Not what you need when anxiety and depression get top marks. After waiting a year had 8 video sessions. I don't think CBT was for me but it's cheap and all anyone will provide. They don't care if you are suicidal.

I found the weekly questionnaires quite binary and some of the questions I could not really relate to or were not anything to do with how I was feeling. Some of the suggestions about how things could be made better or how to think differently felt very simplified. If things were that easy I wouldn't be in this position. I have made so many changes to make life better.

I was however, surprised and shocked to be discharged as me anxiety and depression scores had increased because of a number of events building up over the weeks. I was discharged and once again left to fend for my self. the therapist said I would be emailed a list of accessible/affordable alternatives (It's the same list wherever you look) but it never arrived. I only received the satisfaction questionnaire. Coz everyone loves a questionair.

Fortunately this was not in the autumn or winter, it was spring into summer and I was able to spend time getting wasted in fields to avoid dealing with problems, not be me and stay alive for another few months.