Clever marketing

I have been quite a big fan of SAS - Who Dares Wins in which exceptionally fit people, usually with some kind of interesting back story. They are subjected to physical and mental challenges and the original number is whittled down to a small, brave few who are then subject to the interrogation phase. The interrogation section involves putting candidates in stress positions and when I watch it I'm amazed at how long people stay in what must be painfully uncomfortable positions where the body has given up, but the mind is forcing the body to comply. I'm also a bit of a yoga fan, if turning up once a week and looking forward to the corpse (shavasana) pose counts. I'm the only one in the family that gets involved and I don't know anyone else in the class, except the teacher. For me it's a bit of escapism. I run there, walk home and try my best during the in-between bits. This week, after doing some of the yoga poses and thinking "Flipping heck, this doesn't look difficult but it doesn't half hurt" I had a further thought: "Yoga is simply stress positions with clever marketing."

I'm angry, not broken

I wrote to Mr Burghart, the Right Honourable Member for Brentwood and Ongar, on January 17th, with the following message:

Dear Mr Burghart

I am disappointed to discover that Brentwood Mind has closed. 

The cited reason for closure is NHS cuts of £200,000 per annum, leaving the organisation reliant on reserves, clearly an unsustainable position. 

In light of the very public declarations by the Conservative Party concerning increased funding for mental health services, please can you explain the disparity between rhetoric and the reality at a local level. 

Yours sincerely

Ann Cardus (Mrs) 

My MP's reply covered the following: an apology for the delay in replying and a passing of the buck with a proxy response from the local Clinical Commissioning Group.

Effectively, my take-out is that mental health provision will now be outsourced to a private provider, the Vita Health Group with an "effective increase in investment in mental health."  The CCG is also currently sourcing a Mental Health and Wellbeing hub which will be based in Basildon.  The use of the word effective before the word investment isn't confidence-inspiring and the establishment of a hub in Basildon doesn't seem to be as convenient for Brentwood-dwellers.

Apparently the CCG was unaware that Brentwood Mind was closing and it seemed to have come as a surprise.  The explanation of how and what happened was very opaque.

Burghart then added that he had been aware of the funding cuts after a review of block funding, and "its service users were offered the opportunity to use their newly introduced personal payments with other providers or services."  I don't quite know what this means but it indicates that the removal of block funding was directly responsible for the closure of the local Mind provision.

Burghart reiterated that there had been an increase in investment in local mental health provision which we have established earlier will be going to a (newly-formed) private company rather than a well established and experienced charity.

Finally, Mr Burghart hoped I would be able to "access the help I needed."

Please feel free to re-read my email to my MP.  At no point did I indicate I needed any help and I'm not happy that he chose to assume I needed mental health support.  How dare he assume that people who care about mental health provision are in need of mental health support?  I care about a lot of things, it doesn't mean I'm directly affected, and, even if I were affected, it's deeply inappropriate to assume anything about my health.

The thing that makes it worse, is that a friend, who wrote to Burghart expressing similar concerns, received a carbon copy of his response.

Ctrl C, Ctrl V sums up the caring nature of UK politics today.  It sickens and depresses me.  I just hope I never need to travel to Basildon for mental health services instead of using a local provider on my doorstep.

This running malarky

I started running in 2015.

It was a slow and painful progression through the Couch to 5k app.

I had assumed, once I'd graduated from the app (running continuously for 30 mins but in no way achieving 5k) that my running would go from strength to strength. 

After several years, I can confirm that this isn't really the case.  I completed our local Parkrun today in just over 40 minutes which is a pretty pathetic time for someone that's been running for years.

My heart rate was at 152 bpm on average and hit 168 at its max.  It's not as though I'm not trying.  I've run faster times with a lower heart rate.  I think my body is just weird and my original assertion that I'm not built for running, is probably true.

Keep it up

Hannah has been trawling my old posts when I could be bothered to post every day.

Maybe I should have maintained my musings about life in general, or maybe not.  I used to enjoy blogging but the pressure to blog daily became too much, and that's when the children had fewer evening commitments and when I was working fewer days in the week. 

Maybe I'll try a few more blogs in 2019 than I achieved in 2018, which isn't exactly difficult as 2018 was a bit of a drought.

No promises but if something tickles or irritates me, then I'll share it here.