Ok, this reply is a tad late - I'm new to this blog (and it's great by the way!) As the wife of a Schizophrenic it's refreshing for me to read someone in NHS services admit that the people who work in mental health are... well... crap. I agree with everything you say. I'd also like to add that psychiatric nurses often treat the patients and there families like an inconvenience - as if they're actually paid to watch tv and drink tea, and patients just get in the way. As for the community mental health team - one time my husband had to be "sectioned". I called the out of hours doctor in the morning at the weekend and it took until about 9pm to finally get the right people to see him before he could be taken in.