Friday 14 November 2014

Simon Hughes MP Q&A at CoolTan Arts, SE17

Thursday 13th November 2014
 
Dear F.E.E.L.,                          

This afternoon at CoolTan Arts, SE17 Simon Hughes MP attended a Q&A meeting with the clients. Below are my two questions to Simon Hughes MP: 
 (i) The Care Quality Commission have recorded that 16.2 per cent of Community Treatment Orders in England are made against black people. Contrast that with the number of black people in English society and tell me that the psychiatric wing of the National Health Service is not institutionally racist. What can be done to eradicate the conscious and unconscious racial bias among doctors?
 (ii) I have a personal question. Could you ask Nick Clegg if he remembers ‘Sookie’? For your benefit Sookie at prep school was Nick’s best friend. Sookie in later life was my best friend and he passed away this year at the age of 48. At death he was on 17 different types of medication each costing the taxpayer several hundred pounds a month and it is clear that twenty-five years of being on numerous psychotropic drugs caused the early demise of my friend. 
As a consequence of my questions I have been invited to meet with The Rt Hon. Nick Clegg DPM to discuss Open Dialogue and the issues raised in my questions. This meeting could be as early as next week. I would advise in relation to the first question the MP challenged the statistics quoting that 11 per cent of the British population are from BME groups however, he did say the figure was unacceptably high. It should be noted although BME groups may be at the level of 11 per cent in society, the proportion of black people I believe is around 4 per cent, and that black people are 7 (seven) times more likely to be diagnosed as being 'psychotic' than their white counterparts. Simon Hughes MP intimated that I and others would be invited to put our views forward at a series of meetings within government.

By Liam Kirk

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