Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust UserWatch

West Midlands Labour Party Where Are The #MH2 Activists?

2018-01-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

We had information passed onto us about the deserted areas of Mental Health activism in Birmingham and the West Mids. Someone had phoned up to ask West Midlands Labour: "Where are the Mental Health Activists?" ....The answer we understand was :

"We do not know, there might be some but we do not know who or where they are" ... That's been passed onto us. So now you know it's a deserted area apart from the "right noises" once in while coming out of MP's mouths

For sure we are wondering too.. The latest anti-benefit 2018 Work Driven Recovery Model/designs by the CCG Commissioners across Birmingham trying to get Serious Mental Illness (SMI's) into work raises real concerns.

We've had it passed onto us that some concerns have been raised with Jack Dromey M.P. and others.. One major concern is how come the Birmingham SMI's involved have not had a proper audit of how many were child abused? It's known on the patient community that many patients have been wrecked as kids like that. It's important so a view can be taken on how to remedy long term unheard damages.

We, like others and many professionals know all this is buried inside Mental Health systems and it has caused lifelong fragmentation of many minds..... We know because: "Trust Us We Are Patients". We have already pointed out too on UserWatch that Psychologist John Read's 2006 meta-study of altogether 30 thousand studies showed high correlations with child abuses and later psychosis.

We know of many life-stories too and the shattering origins of so many buckled minds who were often switched off by drugs from any fuller witnessing of their Selves in psycho-dynamic type therapies ... You might ask : What therapies are on offer to the SMI's who are being driven into a Work Driven Day Service Recovery model? Bugger all actually.

A pilot type CBT type exercise we understand was done in 2015 for about 28 Bipolar Users in Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust.

So evidentially a few SMI's have had lightweight CBT in the SMI's population in Birmingham (see Aaron Becks ideas on what CBT is) ) which is a type of rationalist approach.... A few ... But CBT does not cut the mustard when people need to deal with mourning historical child abuse/trauma damages which emerge as felt trauma in their bodies. There was only one Personality Disorder type we could see in the pilot at the BSMHFT and no Schitzophrenics.. (the type often with high child abuse trauma backgrounds)

Those few SMI patients we have heard from in Birmingham, who purchased private therapies know their childhood damages were rarely heard for years and years in the NHS services and thus they knew there is an unaddressed trauma-drive to seek a "Hearing" ..... It's an unmet need .. It's an emotional/biologic drive to be seen and heard properly. Otherwise we are ape-like-dogs and barking without fully articulating what's really happened and needs mourning (crying about). Without help kids dissociate too but the energy of trauma comes through in the end.

But there is largely a CBT monotherapy culture in the UK although around the edges of it there are still some practitioners of mixtures of other approaches....SMI's have languished therefore for years often without a hearing help for their inner worlds of memory and feelings.

In Sweden, monotherapy approaches using CBT has given way to the use of Psychodynamic Therapy too which reveals and heals feelings ...it's been said there by their National Audit Office that one type of therapy actually damages mental health.

[See Also This]

Deep pained feelings in many SMI's are those very things (historic unresolved feelings) that drive the pain inside them of the unheard child inside damaged adults that end up hearing the voices of original persecutors that never wanted to hear them anyway ....Punished for existence . You can do a lot about the past of emotional damages - you can create hearings and places to cry and be witnessed properly. You can rebuild selves that way to tolerate the terrible things that have happened to them through emotionally mourning events... In tears ..Otherwise the emotional past powers itself all through any part of the rational mind like a steamroller into a crisis.

Not in the Birmingham NHS though does emotional focused solutions predominate with it's rationalistic rich mental health bureaucacy and often superficial anti-emotional/risk averse ways ... How can anyone truly heal if they are not allowed to truly feel as deep as they need to ? Poor SMI's do not stand a damn chance in life without better more enduring therapies and hearings.

"Get 'em to Work ! ....".... The 19th Century survives still with it's blacking out hatred of pained feelings/emotions put into policies that ignore the vast truth of often child abused lives .....Therefore in Birmingham SMI's are being sold the wrong policies and drivers to get well .... That's not just a shame ...It's wasting money and time and creating jobs for the 3rd sector chosen to deliver the dream of Commissioners and the Government ...What are they? Work Chains on Service Users by newer service classes with shared intellectualized illusions .....

#MH2 Stop Over-Medicating Child Abused Adults -Therapy First!

2018-01-17T13:36:00.001-08:00

By PatientGuard

Come on you brilliant middle class healthcare admin classes and you #MeToo Twitterers in and around Mental Health (MH), and you Psychiatrists ! #MH2 ! Many of you know the social truth that there is a high causal link between child abuse and childhood mistreatments and people presenting as fragmented up minds later whether that is inside Personality Disorders or Psychosis.

You already know - there's plenty of proof for this (2006 Psychologist John Reads Work)... I mean meta studying 30 thousands studies is just a bit large of a truth isnt it ? Eh ? So what happened after 2006 ?

Why ignore a massive unmet need for a large social scream of the unscreamed truth ? Remember the child abused Child Migrants sent to Australia ! Remember the burial of truth about 1400 girls in Rotherham? Remember some of your own lives ... Get brave and open up on this shitty lying that's been going on for generations..... #MH2......

Look! In Birmingham there is fuck all in the way of decent therapies for child abused people presenting with long term MH illness unless some go to R.S.V.P. Birmingham - the RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE PROJECT - where service users from Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust end up sometimes.

What's that telling you ? Anything ? That Mental Health help is properly shaped?

That over-medicating crazed kids inside the minds of some psychotics is right ? Because that is what happens by default for people suffering old imprints of abuse and sexual persecutions that come out in twisted perceptions because of pain...

This is way overdue to lift the lid #MH2 on abuses that have damaged lifetimes!

#MH2

Therapy First!
Legalised Patient Choice!
Stop the default discrimination
Against child abused
Adult survivor Patients !

Trust Over-uses Restraints In Birmingham + No Audits For Child Abused Yet

2018-01-16T17:21:00.002-08:00

Dear Johnny, CEO and Wizard of the Great Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Emerald Foundation Trust , we are anonymous - well kind of.

So we qualify Great John - for writing to you according to your poster but with a Userwatch Duty Of Candour too that means we spit things out honestly. Quickly. But that's an amazing poster John - great imagination - but how does anyone get to contact you really? .... We hear you do not seem as available as Sue Turner the retired CEO used to be....Hell ! We might be wrong John ! But it's what we hear from Service Users ...

Maybe we just do not know the privileged Users or special ones :) who get to meet the Great John !

And hey , we also hear the Trust under you at the moment requires improvement. Quote from the CQC 2017 report :

"Following the (CQC) inspection in March 2017 we have changed the overall rating of BSMHFT from "Good" to "Requires Improvement"

We are not being cheeky John --- Nahhh never that John .... We have our researchers out looking at CQC 2017 documents that state the Trust needs to improve. You know, on chemical coshing of people because you were all still using out of date 2005 guidance from NICE and tranquilizing people too quickly!

Look John - as anonymous nobodies - qualifying to write to you - we have something to say about Child Abused Adult Survivors in mental health buried under all sorts of "treatments" which frankly denies human history....

Look John we all need a Duty Of Candour in our society don't we ? Admitting real (child abused) history and historical damages are treated as mentally pilled illness in far too many people ...

So lets get an audit of the problem out in society and stop discriminating against the child abuse survivors in mental health and get them Patient Choices of treatments ...

Bankers, which rhymes with another word - that everyone has supported for years with spending cuts can help can't they now they are re-capitialised on the back of everyone ? Or even politicians of all parties that never create remedies of Patient Choice Of Therapies for loads of personality disordered child abused people the BBC reported on lately can surely get their political insight arses into gear and audit child abuse in mental health adult survivors and correlate it with long term static psychotherapy-less disability ?

NO wonder child and other abused people go mad in the world when most are not even validated for the abuses they have suffered. So John the Great, what's been happening with some of them at the Trust : Quote from the same CQC report :

"There was a high use of prone restraint in the (BSMHFT) Trust out of 1229 restraints between December 2015 - November 2016 . 580 of which were carried out in the prone (face down) position "

You know that is sad .... With so much information that psychotic people too are mostly victims of childhood mis-treatments and child abuse (see John Read's work on over 30 thousand studies on causal links between child abuses and psychosis )

See here too for : "Prone Position" for it's dangers"

Lets Audit Child Abuse Factors In Mental Health Birmingham Users First

2018-01-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

How the Birmingham Report In Abused Girls Was Suppressed

There is still much work to be done to expose why sexually/emotionally abused children end up as adults who evolve from them and have mental health illness created by others hurting their minds and bodies. A lot of poor mental health even at the psychotic end of descriptors is caused by mistreatment in childhood....It's often been institutionally ignored. We contend it still is by Mental Health (MH) Trusts who do not audit child abuse backgrounds in the patients that come to them. Whether that be, sexual abuses, physical or emotional abuses or mixtures of that over years. The result is patients with a static life on drugs and very poor supplies of empathic therapy rebuilding their emotional lives. We know that these arguments have been put forwards to MH Commissioners in Birmingham lately who have been re-designing services for Seriously Mentally ill people to get to work..The new model designed is a "Work As Recovery Driven Model". Missing the fact that for years there's been no emotional rebuilding of broken core-self , in many of these pilled up folk .....

Anyone that wants to argue with this idea that Child Abuse causes mental illness can go and read the work by John Read (psychologist) and his colleagues who studied 30+ thousand studies on causes of psychosis who found high correlations between abuse in childhood and fragmented minds.

Anyone who wants to argue that Child Abuse does not cause neural damages can go an argue with studies done in Sept 2017

UserWatch is aware of many Users in Birmingham that have been through poor care systems and care mistreatment. We are certainly aware too of the way politicians have been burying parts of the poor care system all the way back to the 1991 Jesson Report in Birmingham that saw patterns of child abuses ....We all saw too 1200 - 1400 girls affected by politically correct politicians and police not speaking up to protect them better in Rotheram .

We say there is a powerful need to Call For Evidence in Birmingham for the amount of buried child abuses in the mental health systems. A powerful need to re-audit mental health service users for the amount of unheard untreated pain in their historically bound emotionally damaged lives ..

Where were their hearings ? Where was their validation ? Where was the longer term therapy supplies based on mourning and holding them ? Where were there patient choices to get well properly ? Some of them had to end up going to the Rape Crisis Sexual Violence Project Centre to be properly heard decades after the mental health services "treated them" ....

There are many MH Service Users under the radar of the media and the MH networkers out there under-reporting or not probing this buried factor of de-stabilising child abuse more....We know ....

#MENTALHEALTHUSERSTOO

Many MH patients have been child abused and largely forgotten ... We need new nationwide audits on this to design services that aid trauma and therapy treatments, that then means people can get well enough to reintegrate back into society ... Stop putting the cart of WORK first .... Treatment FIRST! ,,,

Otherwise we will see Governments carp on about getting everyone into Work while people in fact remain with broken souls just under society's broad carpet sweeps, of drugged memory, and perversely shared social amnesia ...

Arts Banned At BSMFT Phoenix Mental Health Day Centre?

2018-01-13T16:15:00.002-08:00

By Patient-Guard

Well thanks for the poetry of the pain we say at Userwatch Collective... Sleeping as we all have been for years...Van Winkle Syndrome though meant we finally woke up alive with long beards to other's concerns. Thanks to the Birmingham Mental Health (MH) Users who sent the email in of this Art Room poetry at the Erdington Phoenix Day Centre where apparently for years patients were able to talk freely and now they have to have a staff member present. Wow! That is so retrograde and institutionalized.

We have been sent texts to show there's apparently been: "unsavoury talk" there... Sounds like the main cook at the Birmingham And Solihull Mental Health Trust does not like the smell of the User Kitchen ? ..... The social dog bones they get are obviously a bit smelly lately ... Mind you we have always known the Board of the NHS Trust eat extremely well ... Users at the Phoenix Centre buy biscuits for each other, so they tell us.

"Arts Banned" - There's Patient Democracy though down the sluice isn't it? Maybe - but there are other User-networks the Trust does not control as an overarching service with it's eyes on (well paid) massive monopoly services across Birmingham with it's own in-house User-intelligence squads watching and reporting back.....We know who they are....They do not know all of us watching them... Of course, until Patient's get real portable budgets for therapies once out crisis, and not the ridiculous superficial CBT Trust brand marked-up rubbish, which tells everyone thought-control trumps emotional damages, then the Birmingham Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust will continue with its self beliefs that it's model is fine and recovers people well. We think that is far from the truth over decades of examples and lives and deaths.

Yet the Phoenix Centre for Day Service Recovery for Serious Mental Illness patients, (SMI's) happens to be at the centre of a storm brewing over reasonable adjustments being made to old mind-damaged Users who are to be thrust into new "Work As Recovery" plans by a team of ex-PCT MH Commissioners who have had their eye on creating a "unified system of mental health recovery right across B'ham" .... Top down 3rd Sector monopoly is what this exercise actually is, with hidden needs to cut costs too. We have seen financial material that supports that assertion and we will follow up in later bloggy "articles".....

These good little ex PCT Commissioners with intellectual whizzyness but a lack of emotional wisdom, are selling some Users down the rivers of sorrows... No model has yet been developed to recover most patients with serious mental illness and the few which do somehow integrate, are favoured either by class connections, London networkers, who influence policy far too much, or special supports that are graced only to the few .....

Many Users remain with family and socially damaged lives from way back and have PTSD like symptoms still ...Even the poor sods labelled Bi-Polar and Psychotic , Schitzophrenic etc. We know along with others, tens upon tens of stories that never get heard of serious early damaged childhoods. They never had deep enough empathic psychotherapy either and largely will never get it now from NHS Trusts. It's like what once patient said to us : "It's slow death by mental health bureaucracy"

But, we knew, that Patient Pain in Birmingham would surface around the remaining Day Services in being altered in April 2018 with older MH people in them suddenly being told by the renewed ex PCT new CCG MH Commissioners, still filled with the London Centre For Mental Health ideas (once named Sainsbury Centre For Mental Health) to prepare for work .......

Even though many are ill or so damaged they cannot ever be fit enough......

Strange isn't it how an Art Room becomes a shut down User-Voice .... What jerks! ... How they will shut down User voices Online ? ... Who cares though ?

Maybe a few professionals do, and maybe when they realise the "work driven model" is not the "Treatment Model", which has long been missing, because of the dominance of an anti emotional over medicalised mental health service, maybe things will alter ...... We will all dead by then probably ....Only bones will be posted here then ... Digital bones ...

CBT and Work are often just the new social strait jackets which do not show up the mess alienated society has created emerging inside the patient's lives that are crazed at family level by it over generations.....

Treatment and Choice Of Therapy First Please For Everyone Who Wants It..!

And, do get the money off the bureau-monster orgs, by getting rid of them and making mental health truly more locally accountable and patient treatment driven. System driven analysis by CCG Mega MH Commissioners perversely creates more of itself rather than individuals being treated with money right there at the front line. Do we always need bureau-serving classes upon new bureau-classes of health bureaucrats creating their privileged lives off the back of unmet need misery? Or do we need localised mental health collectives monitored by lay people with some empathic therapy experience of gritted teeth life , and not the shiny Cogsters minds that pose as "good practice"...

Totalisation Of The Birmingham Day Services to "Recovery" Services

2018-01-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

A UserWatch Collective Writer

UPDATE : Under the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, (CCG's) rapidly growing in Birmingham into pointed new churches of hyper-bureau-spires with GP Gods, who have "spired up" from flatter pyramid designs in Birmingham we have the old Primary Care Trust Team thinkers planning mental health provisions in old ways : "modernised" ... This is not good news ... It is all: "Work Is Recovery" - instead of "Treatments First" at the Patient Choice demand level. Mental Health Commissioners in Birmingham (from PCT's) who should have been dis-invented long ago are still designing the UK mental health world without proper full Patient Choice in mental health. Remember in mental health discrimination exists and is perpetuated by Commissioners and Governments because there are no real choices of recovery provision. Certainly no patient-experience drivers for better recovery treatments (post crisis) which fit patients better by their choices with their own portable budgets which competitively raise the game of therapy provision that works for people. In other words a market therapies culture, led by service user culture, that really tests the NHS monopoly branding of CBT soup with drugs for all with a dash of other more superficial therapies....

No, you won't get a serious market like that under Labour (with it's bureau-classes in deep tidal undertow) or with Tories who have a keen eye on cost restrictions. What you have between the two Red Mad/Blue Sad Party State is "Work Recovery" services ... With a ton of shibbolethic insider phrases in Commissioner documents like: "peer led services" and other gumph.....Rather than "resolution of emotional life crises done by longer term therapy"

In Birmingham, Better Pathways, an ex industrial therapy service is the head of the latest Consortia in 2018 taking over "Integrated" - "Recovery" services and that sat years ago at the table of the PCT Mental Health Commissioners ... Like Birmingham MIND .... Another organization that is really less like a Charity now and more like a business for more admin classes..... What is seriously bad about these evolving "peer led" services embedded in 3rd Sector alliances is the way they falsify real recovery .....

Some service users are bought off by roles of "importance" that give them bits of power over other service users.... At the bottom of that well designed modernised social ditch is a feeling of shit ...Yes shit.. Why is that ? Because the system is using people (Users) against people (Users) who barely have lives and crave bits of importance ...It's another layer of socially justified neurosis where real needs for healing and personal integration will not happen, instead it's a co-dependent compensatory measure of bad faith in truer healing.

It lacks integrity and truthful authentic healing.....It is the modernised "Workhouse" come back from the emotionally thick-torian past and it does not believe in healing but forceful integration into a messy city of over-immigrated EU and other populations looking for resources, bottom end jobs, in competition with anyone, and that includes mind-crippled unhealed Service Users ....Can this work ? No, but it will be promoted as if it can.....

Meanwhile we all continually pay in the UK for "Incapacity Benefits" still for the UK banking world which sold everyone out on casino banking with the global gambling of packaged false debts sold as sub prime "investments" ....

Mental Health Commissioners in Birmingham are a sitting class-pretty with nice lives, holidays , retirement plans etc but push old ideas which will injure service user lives rather than heal them by enfranchisement of Patient Choice of treatments.

Mind you the Commissioners are going to dole out "Personal health budgets" of a possible £800 for about 73 service Users by about 2019/20... Those budgets UserWatch believes will be shaped around: "Work Is Recovery" .... Rather than any Patient Choice therapy led provisions for the many Service Users who were mistreated badly as kids and remain a buried lost factor in Mental Health Services who will barely admit a large number of their patients are in fact long term child and social abuse victims...... Who needs therapy ! ...Work for your living! Yeahhh ...... Sure ...

NO MENTAL INDEPENDENT HEALTH MONITORS IN BIRMINGHAM UK

2017-12-01T12:35:00.001-08:00

Patient Guard Correspondent : Dec 1st 2017 .

So now you know. The Bureau-Koggery named Local "HealthWatch" set up by similar minded pollytricky politicians (NO you do not have a party or friends) means in Birmingham at least you have no mental health monitors that check service design independently to see if it works or to review it.

Today, that was passed onto us by a well known ex mental health monitor who would never bend to the ways of the Bureau-saurus's. Mind you there are plenty of half-way strange service-user-arrangements that have grown up in the local all too alive Siberian mammoth Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust ....

There, they now have "See Me" workers and now "Peer to Peer" workers (some paid and others Voluntary .....And other softly Sovieted like ranks..... Spilling outwards at least partly from the all too influencing London policy tricksters (yes, you too NSUN) who are always re-inventing new ways to make some new "entry level working" User bureacracy, into the latest game of "Social Inclusion" that pays the "recovering" few..... Who never quite leave the Trust anyway.

"Peer to Peer" workers whose "training" costs £1100 a throw (there are 30 such people in the Birmingham Solihull Mental Health NHS Trust) is the new brand of "moving forwards" - "Progress" .... Where on earth Patient Choice Of recovery treatments went to, with proper budgets for therapy or training, defeats us at the sleeping half hibernating UserWatch caves where we went primitive and drew buffaloes in our deep feeling yowling therapies that made sense ....

Yet there, is the shock ... No HEALTHWATCH mental health monitors ... No-one independent to compare service delivery intentions to that of actual mental service user experience .. No-one to guard the Patients against the regalia of "patient devices" including the paid Charitocracy, set up to "protect them" and other mental health service users playing inside that.....

But of course, there are little sectional ex-service-users interests inside Trusts too stuck inside a conflict of interest zone because as ex-patients they: "want to get on" .....At whose expense ?

Yeah sure -- they have : "lived experience" as patients, some claim ..... Our strong advice is stop trying to be others in their half dead skins and let that come alive properly by supporting the truer integrity of Legalised Patient Choice and Independent Advocacy - namely a Patient Choice budget too that fits the needs for retraining in safe places (not necessarily colleges) or indeed for therapies.

Here's an example of NHS Trust failure ... One User who contacted us could not get the right therapy for being mistreated as a child so had to use a Rape Victim Centre where that Centre helped with near 50 sessions of counselling. What did the Trust do over years of that person's pain. Fuck all in any therapy that was any good apparently... "Forget the Past", it's happened and ignore the pain of the flashbacks ...Distract yourself from them cognitively .. Yeahhh sure ...It's only a memory .. Whatever you do, do not seek to drain down the pain via therapeutic crying... Nooooooo .... That's the (general UK wide) NHS Trust's position...

So have a guess what ... We know lots of patients that have suffered child abuse and rape as kids and it's all buried inside their "diagnosis" ..... So why you might ask, is there no UK wide mental health patient enquiry into the long term affects of historical child abuses ...?

The point is, mental health agony and pain about rapes, child abuses, and early mis-treatments, need emotional draining down into mourning....And social witnessing too. Ahhhhhhh, but the NHS Trust money gets tied up to social engineering people "back to work" via schemes that divert money and opportunity for treatments and that social engineering does not work for many who are just kept inside maladies even more.....Welcome to the shadow worlds.

Patient Guard: Dec 1st 2017 .

Alice And The Healing Bringer

2015-10-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

Alice said

In the discovery and recovery of abuse
You see the transgenerational use
Of blame of that wild child

Everyone swears they did their best
Yet no-one seriously guessed
How secret voids of uncare were piled

Oh, they were invisible enough
Told tales over with idealised family stuff
But the natural Self never really smiled

It's like the photo's they all took
On each shoulder a secret miserable Rook
Referred to as: " wonderful life" and filed..

Well perhaps for some it's not go numb and dumb
Be well suited up, tidied and glum
And look meek and mild

But when you go against the colder hate
Seek comfort alone and moon masturbate
You know it's family deprivation re-styled ......

[Ahhh - the Rook said .. That's what my secret purpose was]

The Unrecovered Country Eh ? Like The Unrecovered Self Circus Really

2015-10-26T11:28:00.002-07:00

Is there much more to say to the false recovery bureaucratic circus's out there ...Nahhhh ..

Flak Continues At Flickr

2013-05-30T13:13:00.001-07:00

There's little doubt after having read hundreds of comments of many ex Flickr Users on the recently deleted forum thread of nearly 30,000 comments (see below) that many Users had not been forewarned at all about the Flickr "Shockr" User interface and format changes . This would have given Users a reasonable time for adjustments, or to export their work, records , family photo's etc somewhere or otherwise back to their computers or other devices.

Yet the black shock Yahoo/Flickr tactics simply were not guided by good ethical practice. The simple truth is Flickr Users deserved better communications about changes well before they happened. Bad managment ? Yes absolutely terrible.

Flickr staff closed down the "Help" forum thread which became reputationally dangerous for more of the internet-"press" to see, when many of them anyway were mostly standing on the Yahoo-fence and were simply being on-message in the media community where favours are done by not reporting the ground based User-experienced facts . Well that is, until the bottom-up Users bite back

Yet for all the deletion of the "Help" forum comments, and now a replacement thread, there's still been a large amount of Flickr Users throwing the towel in :

It's not just one Flickr User, as above, with a lot images to re-adjust storage for, it's others with the same problem who have gone to ipernity.com which frankly offers more functionality than the good old Flickr did ..It offers music upolad , document upload and film upload, as well as image upload.

There is a group : New Flickr Survivors with over 800 in it

It's worth a look for those who like developing online community inside relaxed white space rather than the frenetic tumbles of images that Flickr.com has now become . Not that the new format does not suit some people. Apparently some like it . Fair enough.

Flickr.com changes have been a loss though and a no-win situation for many Flickr Users . Many did try to voice reasonable points but they were ignored by Flickr's Community Management Staff for days. Many were accused of being "whingers or whiners" by some of the perverser Flickr pro-change members. That has been echoed in other quarters by pro-yahoo bloggers who need to show that somehow ordinary folk who "whine" are lesser-subcultures ....

This was just another injury to wounds, symptomatic of badly managed change that happened without warnings for Flickr User's personal adjustments .

Flickr-staff now are showing they hear people rather than being invisible . Its very late "good practice" but maybe late is better than never ..In the new Forum with over 2000 Users mostly negative comments there is finally some better Flickr Staff communication .

Further Reading :

Is this the end For Flickr

Flickr Staff Thea To Throw Towel In ?

2013-05-26T04:40:00.001-07:00

With the Thor's hammered alterations at the Yahoo US Flickr photo and image storing site still underway and the majority of (vocal) users there unhappy, with many apparently gone or stunned into photo-store imprisonments, or some waiting still for deeper compromises, there are light moments on the forum cliffs where the various birds scream at the Flickr hawks. They have good cause - investing as they have done in creating niches over years which have been spoiled by shocking black swoops of advertising-eagles searching for revenue nests they can exploit.

Thea Lamkin (Flickr communication staff heading the "Help Forum" messages) who claimed in her twitter post of 21st May that she is an "iiiiiiisland" in one of her latest twitter posts is a communicator purely of the on-message new Yahoo-Flickr stance that no great changes backwards to a prefered "classic view" will happen but essentially Flickr will tweek and squeak about etc.

Thea tweets now : "Good day for a towel" ...

Does she want to throw it in ?

Nah.... It's just getting slightly warmer in the San Francisco area which features Alcatraz and is famous for the Bird man who liked tweeters too . There are rumours though that Flickr may put it's servers there because of threats about Terror biting Flickr Users . Userwatch is keeping contact with Homeland Security and is alerting them to too many free Terror biters being about

25000 User Posts Later Flickr Claimed To Be "Failr"

2013-05-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

See Flickr Help Forum Page 259

No apologies from Marissa Mayer for no full consultation on Flickr image-site changes.

It just gets sadder and sadder on Flickr as no-one from Yahoo accounts properly to the vast majority of User posts (over 25000 now) to state there will be no final compromise with many of the paying Flickr Pro users. Compromise solutions have been put forwards for Flickr staff (Yahoo) to consider such as having both Flickr versions: "classic" (plenty of white space to aid focus) and "new" (scrolling joined up boxes together) but someone is not for budging at all .

Userwatch thinks it might have helped if Flickr-Yahoo had spelt out their business plan (to corral more ad revenue) and future view of where Flickr was going and why it was so necessary for Flickr to change - yet users were shortchanged on that inclusive, informing way, to create better toleration of change .

The black shock of sudden change taking control of all Flickr User's images, the way they are shown and the dissent, is not stopping .

Exclusive Yahoo CEO Stress Over Flickr Changes

2013-05-24T18:10:00.003-07:00

UserWatch had a unique insight into Yahoo's CEO and the stressful job of turning flickr photo-storers into little woolly Yahoo advertsing sheep using their bleeting photographs encoded warmly to look for more mobile sheep looking for bits of incidental ad-grass to bite on or get hooked by. Hungry little devils !

In the mass manipulation trade of sheep Adology it is known a virtuous eco-circle equation of hungry big corporo-wolves hanging around tasty little site-sheepies . The wolves are known as the Terrorbytes to those in the Adological jaw dripping and clawing circles .

Yet you have to have whimpathy for the CEO and her issue that she does not like the fact that "Flickr" sort of rythmes with "Marissr" and may change the site name to FUMBLR... It has become an irritating almost synonym-like relationship of late, but let's face it stress is good for you and pulled out hair can be transplanted again on the pay of a CEO ...

If you want to see Marissa prompting partly her own applause at a promotion of the new Flickr you can see it HERE

Flickr Staff Ban Consumer Petition

2013-05-24T13:59:00.003-07:00

All quiet on the Mayr front : How about an apology to tens of thousands of complaining Flickr users ? @marissamayer @techcrunch
— Art De Rivers (@ArtDeRivers) May 24, 2013

So there you have it - Flickr staff close down a reasonable consumer petition after their own unconsulted upon massive changes to the site

http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157633536708919/

It was a great photo-store site with suitable "negative space" or "white space" which created a sense of focus on a picture or arts and it was not interfered with, too much, by ad-hungry Yahoo who took it over in 2005. It was in profit too and probably still earns revenue. Yet Marissa Mayer CEO of Yahoo is on a mission and that mission is to conquer the new Mobile Planet with armies of used people, or rather their stored images with an advertising banner underneath and the big pull of a free terrabyte of image storage as long as your images and you can be used to sell ad space..

Somehow "terrabyte" starts to sound like "terrorbite" and maybe the evolving world is one where slowly the populace get bitten by the feelings they are being watched and watched and watched by secret little ad-bots sneaking into your every digital space ... Roll on the privacy reactions and more boundaries . It will happen. The net has been colonised by the silicon aces of quiet manipulations - flying under the radar of your senses and sites and innocent actions to just network.. Yahoo and Facebook and even Google are turning the net into a closed experience all pointing towards them and the ad-maggots... Lords of the Flies are dominating the web ... All you have left is your best spit - use it on the web and keep the web as sane as it can be, given that we are all crazed anyway.

Death Of Flickr - And the User Firestorm

2013-05-21T07:11:00.001-07:00

Spider Corporate hunting for the magic market of flying demand trends is getting sicker. Mind the Web is turning sticky and stickier and some trapped flies are pissing on the spiders with that anti web sentiment cream known as "boreine". You know, that liquid that moves from a tar like state to a black goo rotting corporo webs as it drips

Time to seek out new rotting sites that smell mucky or perhaps sweet enough to land on - say some of the flies . The butterflies already migrated or are in the process as corporate warming heats up the polar areas of the internet and they dodge the methanes...

The point is the corporates are trapping flies galore and so evolution begins again and a cycle of adapation has to take place otherwise you cheeky flies are trapped in Google or Yahoo or Facebook muck-webs

Flickr's days are over as a good site with too much sticky Yahoo-ism in the background and Google-ism and oh god that masturbatory Wastebook Muckerbergism . Can Users save Flickr from Marissa Blonde-Sword of the sweet and nasty spider tribes where the those who live and suck on the hill smile as they kill .... Good old John - that was a good song ...

SAMPLE OF FLICKR FIRESTORM BELOW :

[Official topic] Feedback on today’s site changes

Thea Lamkin says:

Egads! Such a lot of new stuff came out today, and we're sure you're itching to tell us what you think about it.

This is just the place for all of your questions, concerns, suggestions, and other non-bug related comments about:

- The new Home page
- The new Photostream page
- The new Photo page
- The new Set page
- The new Search
- Other design changes you may have noticed

Let's keep all the feedback in one place and let everyone have a chance to be heard. Kay, Emily and I will be reading everything you have to say, and responding when we have the time and information to do so.

Thanks everyone, and Flickr on!
Posted at 2:20PM, 20 May 2013 PDT ( permalink )
Thea Lamkin (staff) edited this topic 17 hours ago.

← prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 99 100 next →

(101 to 200 of 9,966 replies in [Official topic] Feedback on today’s site changes)

	Yersinia says: What sohvimus says. And what Catsy says. I find it absolutely unusable. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	. december . says: This is really cluttered, messy, and awful. I really wish we had the option to change back to the old view. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	hbp_pix says: I hit refresh and the whole screen completely changes. What the Hell? The "justified" view of photos is VERRRY slow. How can you get away from it. Where are the stats?? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	kitsch&curious says: Absolutely appalling. All the familiar, usable points of reference have been lost. The home page is a nightmare - just a few massive images that are out of my control. Seriously, I want to leave now. How do I get a refund on my pro account? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Pink Paramount says: Please give us an option for 'classic view', I am not liking these new changes at all! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	solipsistnation says: This interface makes it significantly harder for me to share photos with my family. It is more difficult to see comments, and comments are truncated. That's ridiculous. In addition, the active scrolling functionality makes the page slower and more annoying. This is not a step forwards. It's flashy, sure, but it's annoying to use. One of the things I LIKED about the previous interface was its relative simplicity and the way it showed me what I wanted to see. There was a summary of photos from friends and family, small enough that it didn't take up the whole page. This way, I'm going to have to pretty firmly prune my contact list so that acquaintances don't overwhelm the people whose photos I most want to see. If I wanted to share photos on Facebook or Tumblr, I'd do so. I don't; I want to use Flickr, or at least I did before today. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	jlbruno says: Stats page gives me a 404. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	línus hrafnkell línusson says: no nonono NONONO Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	day-at-the-beach says: I'll need to figure this out before I give it the thumbs up or down. The one thing I loved seeing is that flickr will support longer videos...it is the one complaint I've had, even with a pro account. Now, off to figure it all out! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	phill.d says: More idiotic changes forced on us without even letting us know, or give us an option. This is complete crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Foden Alpha says: I dislike the new look and would like an option to change back to the previous look I've been used to for years, thanks. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	richardr says: Assuming the photo I want to set as my photostream cover photo isn't one of the last 100 uploaded and I don't want to upload it a second time.. can I actually do it? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	paperfairy. says: Mary Faith.: I agree, this new upgrade seems to be lagging up my comp. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Lynne Lamb / paintistworks says: No, no, no, no ,no......it's garish, fussy and makes everything too fussy....!!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Raising Cane says: Wow!! Yuk!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Itinerant Wanderer says: I've hated most of Flickr's changes through the years but this one really takes the cake. Change it back!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Presidio of Monterey: DLIFLC & USAG says: While understanding the reasoning behind the layout change (making it more mobile device friendly), I feel that for your CORE users this is not an improvement. My suggestion would be to change it back or at least offer a toggle option between the new and old layout until people learn how to more effectively use it. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Passing Time says: What Crap, Why oh Why. If its not broken don't fix it. Could you explain to us user's why you have inflicted this change on us.? Do you people actually use Flickr or is it just a Job.? Please change my account back to what it was on 20th May 2013 Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	ifotog, Queen of Manhattan Street Photography says: really big MISTAKE! give me back my old Flickr. I can't see and organize my photos. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Roger Wyrick says: Horrible! The new format is awful, Please return the old format. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Tea in Europe says: It dont even work cant add to groups or sets either, is this a late April fools Trick flickr is pulling on us all ? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Lune Rambler says: How do I change my photostream back to Small and my Group back to Thumbnail? What is this obsession with Huge.....is there no taste on Flickr??? We had the option to change size before.... Where is the option to change to something visually pleasing to individual tastes??? Please show an Option - on Photostreams and Groups - to change the size. A Big Please, Pretty Please Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Zoom Lens says: What the friggin' hell is this cockeyed mess???! I uploaded your precious Chrome, which I loathe, despise, and hate, to get this confused mess to be somewhat visible...I tried to use the link to change the layout of my page back to photos visible on one side with sets visible on the other and when I clicked that link is said I followed a bad link. I don't know where anything is. I have no clue how to use anything. I hate when people make ridiculous and unnecessary changes and expect people to poke around and find out how this half-broken mess works!!!!!!!! GIVE US AN OPT OUT! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	homebuiltpcs says: What have you done? This does not work at all :-( Is there a way to change it back? The old interface worked so much better. I can't even use this on my tablet now, and I'm sure it will be even slower on my netbook. Can you please give us an option to retain the original interface? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Rat_Salad (sorry, can't comment on all!) says: Undo the changes completely please - or at least give users the option to revert to the old look and feel - this new look is appalling!!! The layout is confusing, everything is oversized and overbearing. Slapping me in the face with such a messy load of disorganised clutter that makes it difficult to work out what is happening is not the way to assume that I will continue to pay for a Pro account! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	gillean55 says: Absolutely appalling. Change this back right now! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	jonbbon5 says: what a bloody mess if you want to change it give people the choice my view is i think i will stop using flickr Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	hbmike2000 says: You are an idiot! You did a test, didn't tell anyone, out of the ones who did find it, not ONE liked it and yet you did the change anyway. I do not want to view a stream of EVERYTHING on my homepage. Tumblr already exists and just because Yahoo bought it doesn't mean change all sites to Tumblr! I already HAVE tumblr and don't need another web site just like it. Are you going to ignore EVERYBODY on the site this time like you ignored everyone who was in the test group? Yahoo did so well with the new homepage on the Yahoo site, how can Yahoo do so BAD on the flickr site? Feedback I love change, I really do but there are NO redeeming value to the load of crap you people have put out Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	J.L.Digital Photos says: I want my money back going to leave Flickr and find a better site !!!!!!!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	cdresser70 says: The new layout sucks! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	3311491469c6a50f8f52ad2747bf4a11 says: It is awful and awfully slow!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	L. Kay says: I liked the old way. Not the way it is. Where are the comments from other people? That what motivates me to post. Now I can't find them. What are you going to do? I hope you are not going to leave it like it is. If I wanted to post on Facebook, I'd be on Facebook. This change is awful!! I've been with Flicker since 2008, I won't post another picture until this is fixed. Does anyone know about other photo sites that are not screwed up? If so, send me a link. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink ) L. Kay edited this topic 17 hours ago.
	Zoom Lens says: What the friggin' hell is this cockeyed mess???! I uploaded your precious Chrome, which I loathe, despise, and hate, to get this confused mess to be somewhat visible...I tried to use the link to change the layout of my page back to photos visible on one side with sets visible on the other and when I clicked that link is said I followed a bad link. I don't know where anything is. I have no clue how to use anything. I hate when people make ridiculous and unnecessary changes and expect people to poke around and find out how this half-broken mess works!!!!!!!! GIVE US AN OPT OUT! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	www.dnurv.ca says: how do i get rid of the blueberry header...or am i suddenly shooting still life in my sleep... sorry to hear Yahoo has a bid on tumblr...i'm sure they'll find a way to make a mess of it you know what they say...if it ain't broke...call Yahoo Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	beqi says: What Simon_K said (on page 1, by now). I liked the uncluttered Flickr—I even became used to the newer page designs, and I don't like this horrible Farcebook 'experience' with everything everywhere. It's ALL TOO BIG! I want to be able to view photographs from different people when I choose, not when you choose for me. Who's paying you for all these pro subscriptions, eh? I'd also like to decide for myself when to load more images. It's a bandwidth hog, which costs us more money and slows our browsers down. We're not all surfing the web on quantum computers you know, Yahoo! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Paul Michael Wilson says: I'm afraid I don't like it either, it's too much like what Microsoft are trying to do with Windows 8, cramming everything into your eyeballs at once and it just makes everything a mess. And now I have to wait for all the pictures to load before I can click on one to view! Some images don't even fit on my laptop screen without scrolling! Please give us the option at least! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	David Fullarton says: This is a total mess, not an improvement at all. I just clicked on the edit layout link to find out it's dead too. Is there any way to get back to something similar to the old layout? I really hope so. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Laurette Victoria says: Very messy! What idiot thought this would be a good idea. Please return to normal which I found very easy to use. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	A damned fool with a camera says: I find this new layout so confusing and difficult to use I could easily fall out of love with Flickr rather permanently. Is there any way I can opt to retain the old format, please? Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	patrick h. lauke says: Keyboard accessibility could be improved enormously. double up some of those :hover etc styles to also react to :focus, and make sure things that appear onmouseover also appear onfocus. Surprised this wasn't addressed properly right for launch, as I thought Y! had quite a good #a11y track record... Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	coolerclimes says: Absolutely horrible - change it back! It is VERY USER UNFRIENDLY! Not good for the eyesight. Please give us back the old look - PLEASE. I will have to find a new photo site, as this is wasting too much of my time trying to find things and getting them to work. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Sewwunderful says: this sucks! please give us an option to take it back to the way it was.......... my account will be coming due to renew soon..... and if it stays this way.... that ain't gonna happen! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	EABNYC says: Thea Lamkin: I HATE this!!!!! How can I get the old set-up back? HATE IT! HATE IT! HATE IT! I can't see my pictures and other people's latest pictures at the same time, so I don't know what's new; There's this huge, ugly black screen with comments only. If this is how Flickr is going to look from now on, I want off. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Shine&Sparkle says: The Photostream pages are very hard to view, too many pictures, far too big, much too close together, it confuses the eyes and the pictures each distract from each other so it's hard to look at anything! Plus, the captions are hidden. And no sets on my photstream page anymore... Don't like it. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	JEA & JEA says: In NO way, Shape or Form an Improvement...It's Horrible actually and doesn't work properly nor can it be changed to what your PAYING customer may want to see..Did I mention PAYING customer who wasn't Notified, consulted or asked... Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Bailey (& Muppet) says: I want the option back to have my homepage in the way I like it. I do not want it in this way!!!! NOT HAPPY with the changes !!!!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	jimf_29605 says: HELP! I want my old flickr... Please give us a "Classic" mode button. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	welshmanwandering1 says: Its SHIT!!!!! I for one will be leaving if it stays like this.... Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	BlueFairlane--Will Be Leaving Soon says: Oh, I absolutely hate this. This just makes me sick. I've been a flickr devotee now since 2007, and it's become a very big part of my life. I've always, always been happy with the layout. It was clean and had plenty of white space that let my photos breathe. Now this is just a jumbled mess where everything is shoved together. It's just ... chaos. It's visual vomit. I would like to at least have the option of maintain the old look. If not, I'll very sadly be done with this. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Zoom Lens says: This sucks more than anything you've ever done! My wife came in to look at my photostream and said, "Good god! That's terrible!" In reference to your new layout. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Lluniau Clog says: Yuk, yuk, yuk! WTF is going on? The new look is a complete mess, on top of being ugly. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	SenebDesign says: I use flickr daily for work (educational), and it is now incredibly difficult to get the information I need for copyright purposes. PLEASE have an option to change it back to the classic view. I also have a pro account and the reason I pay for the account is I liked the simplicity of the site. This is not simple or user-friendly. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	J.L. Keet says: This is just horrible, I can barely navigate. Seriously, what was wrong with how it was? Please change it back! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	ladyluver2011 says: Please Yahoo what are you doing now. You guys seem to like to change things when the old things don't even work right half the time. Now I can't access my pics or anyone else's because your silly little blue and pink dots just keep spinning and spinning. I already knew Yahoo was a second class organization but now I'm about done with this! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	jenniferbeinhacker.com says: i clicked in the regular flickr yahoo and got a new home page.."smile jenniferbeinhacker.com" here's what's new" oh no...i think i am in a bucket test...or is this for real i truly hate the way this page looks....and it is not user friendly. there was an X to click on and i did but the page did not go away. any advice? staff...i hate it hate it hate it. unwieldy, hard to use, can't fid anything, looks terrible why why why did you have to do this???????????? and since it's here and although you are asking for our thoughts......i know it won't go away no matter how many of us hate hate hate it thanks in advance for all replies and help. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Grant Simon Rogers says: How do I revert to the old ON WHITE look. On black should be an option and not compulsory. Sorry, it looks awful Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Ed Durbin (Katodog) says: Horrible, horrible, ridiculous, horrible, shocking, horrible, blindingly stupid, horrible, ridiculous, and did I mention horrible? No joke folks, I'll delete my account is I have to stare at this ridiculous layout. This is insanity at its best, you can't do anything now because it's all destroyed and mish-moshed and relocated, and destroyed, and ridiculous, and horrible. But of course the folks at Flickr don't give two-craps about our opinion, so don't expect it to change. Sucks, because I always liked Flickr, but the delete button is within arms reach right now..... Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Rachel Lady loves Middies says: The new look makes me glad I didn't sign up for a Pro account :/ Pretty please change it back! This reminds me of the movie "Elizabethtown"... a fiasco :P Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink ) Rachel Lady loves Middies edited this topic 17 hours ago.
	dr_urbanus (Martin) says: Hate it hate it hate it hate it. Change it back PLEASE. As someone said, all the familiar points of reference are gone. Too much going on, too busy. Old design was nice and clean. CHANGE IT BACK!! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	Claude@Munich says: I really don't like it that the design has been changed without being asked! How can I get back to the old design?! I don't know how to send my photos to a group....... Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	joeke pieters says: This is terrible! Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	BarkingBill says: This is really a bad idea. Please return us to normal service quickly please. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )
	SolarSanction says: This is ridiculous. If I wanted this, I would have just gotten 500px. Change it back. Posted 17 hours ago. ( permalink )

Purple Bunny And The NHS Green Walrus On Jam Tomorrow Island -

2012-05-07T04:56:00.001-07:00

The NHS Green Walrus On Jam Tomorrow Island by SilvisRivers on Flickr.

"Well" said Purple Bunny of Bunnington-On-Ward - "We all know that NHS Walruses with Snail Hats can certainly sit fatly down upon the re-birth of the Phoenix-ash-Bird . It's a case of big over Ass over Ash written :

ASS

___ = Jam Tomorrow Land

ASH

You see, paying for old rolling-on ways, conflicts with simple things like Patient Choice Wing mechanisms - practical mechanisms where money follows the patient and aids health. You see Oh Walrus, those resources you take, create lost opportunities for others, who need the resources to grow their own ways in targeted individual ways.

Of course a patient-choice culture in mental health will never grow or find it's sticks for its crippled feet, so long as it is kept inside it's own crippling fears and co-dependencies with staff in need of long term retirement plans . But of course, the years of Jam Tomorrow "User Involvement" led this way - with Service Users (patients) given little more than an assimilated voice in the years 1997 - 2010 and a lot of pseudo-representation .

Now its monocultural CBT and charitised "recovery" with dubious provisioners . Here on Jam Tomorrow Island the truth is both felt and seen and blows rue-fully through the Holey-standing-stones. "

Then Purple Bunny sang :

The Green Walrus

"Snail-hatted and slicked with old sea moss and weed
Fat-Sat the walrus denying real birds of captured need
But listener it was to beached tunes and other's deserted strings
So it could turn the sands of Time into bottom sinking things
And therefore sit 'til being bones on lost chance's imprisoned wings .."

Discovering Jam Tommorrow Island

2012-04-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

Jam Tomorrow Island

Impossible though it seems
He made it through a Phoenix sea of dreams
Through the sunlit waters of yellowed creams

To the island of rock jammed lost Do-nutted screams

It's always down to us
The mess , narcissisms and lack of trust
Our moral failures, yours and mine
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
How some of us just never shine
Or get the jam or get the crust
Oh , pine pine pine

So walk upon the shore
Bare-souled bare-feet
Examine each zero rock
Accept the grace beyond defeat
Listen to winds and the hollow tunes
Leave graffiti sobbing in cartoons

.

Purple Bunny's Lesson On The Phoenix Jerk In The Box

2011-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Courtesy Artist : Silvis Rivers 2011

If you are a rabbit of light 'n purple sense
Then watch manipulation by the cleverly "dense"
Keeping others there , on the dependent shelf
For rich careers and the pensioned Self

You'll never be able to flow
Cus these fekkers play your lives
And never let go

One thing's for sure
They'll fight dirty, make it look clean
Show others up
While playing keen

And that's the ash you are sitting in
The polluted Phoenix
That changes to sin
.

.

Politically Engineered Messes

2011-08-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

Engineered

There's nothing to fear
The Parties are here to engineer
With welfare pressure and a kick
Up the butt
And falling fired scaffolding
And tightening your nut

In a country where bankers can
Quietly rob
And you "blackies" must get
A void for a job

In London's gold streets
You've missed your role
Or was it undercut
By an EU Pole ?

Go burst the petrol dam
Let out the fire shoal
The volcano egg's hatching
Careful, its catching ....

.

The National Association of LINks Members Press Statement

2011-08-07T18:31:00.001-07:00

Toon Courtesy Of Art De Rivers

Below is a press statement we picked up and decided to publish :

The National Association of LINks Members

Healthwatch Pathfinders Starved of Funds

Secretary of State forgets his "nothing about me without me" mantra

Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health will today announce the details of 75 LINks (Local Involvement Networks) the local health and social care watchdogs, awarded Pathfinder status by the Department of Health to support their development to become Healthwatch organisations.

LINks are set to ‘evolve’ into Healthwatch in October 2012 with greatly expanded duties. But whilst millions are being given by the government for the organisational development of Pathfinder Clinical Commissioning Groups (£7milion in London alone), Andrew Lansley has plans to give absolutely nothing to Pathfinder LINks.

NALM finds it incomprehensible that that whilst money has been found to be used by the DH for LINk Pathfinder evaluation, networking and shared learning with LINks, that no money will be given to the LINks individually to run their leading edge Pathfinder work.

NALM’s recent report ‘Evolution or Abolition’ showed that LINks, have suffered an average 24% budget cut, and some cuts as great as 70%

Malcolm Alexander, Chair of NALM said: LINks are run by volunteers and have a major role in monitoring the quality and safety of NHS and social care services from a user’s and patient’s viewpoint. To expect them to run successful Pathfinders with no additional money is frankly insulting to the excellent and committed volunteers across the country, who strive to make LINks a success.

The launch of Healthwatch Pathfinders today is a hollow event. LINks have a vital role in monitoring services, and we expect the Secretary of State to value their great contribution, by funding the development of Pathfinders.

We (NALM) call on Andrew Lansley to show that the government values LINks and is committed to Healthwatch by producing funding that will enable them to development into powerful community organisations.

Malcolm Alexander NALM Chair

Community Health Councils Landing In Birmingham?

2011-07-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Captured Using Telescopic LINk Fade-ar Plus Intuition

It was spotted orbiting over Birmingham UK . Neither man, nor aeroplane, nor bird - it was a Local Involvement Network (LINk) body (of health monitors) - slowly fragmenting and burning up suitlessly without enough resources and LINk oxygen as it entered into Birmingham Council bureaucracy and the political atmospheres of the new building of the HealthWatch giant rocket . Yes it is certainly rocketing LINk .

It will be all things to all citizens and will take a whole populations concerns on board . Or will it ? Will it lift off ? Will it be too heavy with its lead weighted ambitions ? Will it be mobile enough and will it be over-captained with far too many compartments? You ask good questions ...... !

Sources reveal to us that there was a Health Adult Overview Scrutiny Committee meeting at the Birmingham Council on 13th July 2011 . One Labour Councillor (from Birmingham South) there reportedly said of the Birmingham LINk :

"The LINK is dead in the water " - "HealthWatch should be moved on with " -

- and words to the effect that :

"Community Health Councils as a model are desireable so long as they are well run and professionally staffed ."

So now you know what is partly likely to happen because of the failure of the Birmingham Local Involvement Network and its poorly dis-unified un-strategic LINk Core Group (now virtually de-commissioned) i.e. it is likely that a set of institutions that were always predominantly white and middle class in Birmingham will resume in time. The CHC's - with a few sprinklings of politically correct Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups ?

Once again white middle class dominion rules ?

A council related document towards the shaping up of HealthWatch that is circulating, does show also predominantly white middle class (a South Birmingham bias ) Councilllors too will have the reins over the shape of HealthWatch . This is in a city with over 50% people who are BME.

Does anyone who is Black and Asian feel really confident about that ? Get in touch - we'll hear you out - leave a comment . We are not happy about this development of Birmingham white middle class white re-surgence of influence either . This is fair comment too on what we have seen so far .

In the HealthWatch Project Initiation document we have seen it says :

"Communications and Engagement plan (June-July)

1. Commissioners, councillors and other key decision makers engaged in discussions

2. Key decision makers include Cllrs Anderson, Tilsley, Rudge, D Alden and Bedser; Peter Hay (Strategic Director); Denise McLellan (Cluster Chief Executive) and the Public Health Transition Board. "

These are the people who will shape your Birmingham HealthWatch in the future. There's no doubt some of these folk have real ability, but are they representative of all Birmingham - really ? What happened to Asian and Black representation right at the top?

No-one is certain about the survival of proper monitoring methodology either that holds both Council and NHS to account . After all the Council are pretty much in control of the HeathWatch budget and its likely sponsored HealthWatch CHC model is still remote ..You might bet though it will be dominated by South Birmingham interests and mind sets .

We are probably looking at more years of post CHC, post PPI, and post LINks, tumbling group chaos, instead of a simple format for citizen training all lay people who want it, in their various local groups, into how to examine services delivery levels and failures and remain independent so they cannot be bought off by subtle favours from services with allegiances to mainly one professionalized class in Birmingham.

Is the CHC a social "analogue" model in a Birmingham society that is woven with many layers and in need of modernisation both socially/mentally ? The CHC model was in itself top down and corporate and frankly would it with a few tweaks somehow guarantee that a crisis like Mid Staffs would not happen ? What was the failure there ? Just poor systems of monitoring? Or was it "collusive" turnings of heads away from more obvious problems more outspoken people were trying to bring attention to ? Was it a situation where vision was locked out by all who wanted not to see it ?

Beware a mono-cultural approach .

HealthWatch Birmingham bottom up localism ?

Not a chance !

More to be a lord and ladies
Middle Class "made-ies " dance ?

Lets see if we are wrong ..

Birmingham Gets Targeted By Mobile DWP Sherlocks

2011-07-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

Its true ! Sherlock Holmes is on his way to Birmingham with a mean machine mobile squad of experts to look at all the benefit claims in Perry Barr and nearby Kingstanding Birmingham . We'll show you the DWP material later claiming this .

What is striking about both of these places is they are traditional working class areas that lost out when de-industrialisation gradually took place all around the Perry Barr area from the years of Margaret Thatcher right through to the promises of things "can only get better" with Tony Blair . There is a lot of knackered up people in these areas.

Now the motto is "Things can only get bitterer" as benefit claims are reviewed and reviewed till the new terror comes home . The new terror is a jobless economy and busted up working class that is not going to magically recover because politicians desire it . Yet the pressure is on to be seen to be "doing something" . It makes good press though and it does point to a genuine unresolvable anxiety that somehow the country just aint going to make it without a "working class" ... Can you remake a working class from the disabled or the unhealthy ? More to the point - who will make and sell what ? Who will compete with low wages in China and India ? Who will magically reinvent the 19th century free market conditions of europes ascendancy which carried on into the 20th century and has now ended in the 21st with masses of invented money and masses and masses of borrowing and banking debt .. ?

Does it matter ? Politicians have got the fox in sight ... Ride it to ground, and rip it apart with the hounds ... Amazingly 19th century isn't it ... Over to the DWP's own text below :

[QUOTE from 8th July DWP Press Release]

"Benefit cheats are being warned today that a new Mobile Regional Taskforce to combat fraud will be visiting their area. This new team will target all high risk postcodes across the country re-examining claims for benefits and Tax Credits.

The Taskforce is the latest crack-down on benefit fraud by the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC alongside local authorities, and cheats are being urged to admit their crimes and pay back the money before they get a knock on the door.

Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform said:

"The new Taskforce is our latest weapon in tackling welfare fraud on the front line. We are sending a clear warning that if you are fiddling the system, you will be caught. Welfare fraud is a crime and takes money away from the most vulnerable.

"People who are receiving the correct benefits and Tax Credits have absolutely nothing to fear. But if people have deliberately not told us of a change in circumstances, they should do so now, before the team comes knocking at their door.

"Alongside the Taskforce we are bringing in the Universal Credit which will simplify and automate the benefits system. This will make it much easier to catch people who make false claims."

People who tell the Department about a change in their circumstances before they are found out by the Taskforce will have to repay the money they owe, and, depending on the seriousness of their action, may face an additional punishment. Anyone who doesn’t take this opportunity and is found by the Taskforce to be committing welfare fraud could be prosecuted and fined or imprisoned.

David Gauke MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury said:

"This government will not tolerate money which is meant for those in genuine need being siphoned off into the pockets of cheats and fraudsters.

"The new taskforce delivers on our commitment to tackle benefit fraud and together with the extra £917 million we have re-invested in HMRC sends a very clear message."

The Taskforce will start on 25 of July in the Perry Barr and Kingstanding area of Birmingham. People can also report a cheat on the National Benefit Fraud Hotline number 0800 854 440 or online via: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/benefit-thieves"

Now For The July Birmingham UK Protests At Cuts

2011-07-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

By A UserWatch Correspondent

There is a public meeting called for on July 20th 2011 in Broad Street Birmingham UK and it is a protest about £33 million spending cuts being targeted on disabled people and others in vulnerable groups .

Considering there has been a High Court case rolling back of Birmingham City Council's ambitions to cut £51 million, and a lot of it on disabled people categorised as within substantial needs, this looks like an evolution to a road to defeat to the Tory/Liberal held City Council .

It will not happen just yet - but it will happen, as other types of squeeze occurs on the disabled population who have some robust law to protect them coupled with welfare benefit changes that look set to actually claim lives and have done so already according to mental health charities (See also the suicide of Paul Willcoxson aged 33 )

Birmingham Local Involvement Network Gets Reduced

2011-07-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

Tied To Action ? Or Is It A Jailed Approach ?

The Birmingham Local Involvement Network, a statutory health monitoring body, has only been funded lately for 7 of its Action (health monitoring) Groups according to sources and a text we have been sent. The funding in place for the Action Groups is only for the months of July , August , September-end . From Oct there will be a new contract and a new Host and there is likely to be new governance in place .

The Birmingham City Council have not funded the LINk Core Group which appears to have become an over-bureaucratic body riven with dissenters and some say it has been "useless" in terms of having any real role . The Action Groups appear to have proven that action is what counts and inward looking bureaucratic meetings do not . Its wastes money and time .

The function of the LINk Core Group was to manage the strategic directions of the overall LINk but it has not enamoured itself to the Council it appears . Neither did it succeed in creating a credible link between "elected" Core Group members and their suitability to be aiding the strategy of the Action Groups . This has been a topic of conversations in several Birmingham circles that have criticised the LINk Core Group .

The email text from Birmingham City Council regarding the reductions of support to just the Action Groups is below :

"Dear LINk Member,

We have now negotiated with Gateway Family Services, the existing Host organisation, for continued LINk Host maintenance for the Birmingham LINk to cover the three months from 1 July to 30 September 2011. We have established continuation of support for those LINk Groups that contribute to health or social care outcomes. On this basis, support for up to one meeting per month has been agreed for the following Groups:

Birmingham East and North Action Group
Enter and View
Heart of Birmingham Action Group
Older Persons Action Group
Mental Health Action Group
University Hospital Birmingham Action Group
Women's Health and Maternity Action Group

We would like to see all of these Groups working towards achieving benefits in health and social care in line with a work programme that is based on evidenced local need. The wider governance arrangements will be revisited once the new Host's contract has started in October. This approach has been agreed and endorsed by Councillor Sue Anderson.

In addition there has been provision for 4 consultation events over the 3 month period; the Birmingham LINk website will be maintained; the 0800 number will continue to operate; and, the insurance cover will remain at the same level as currently. Gateway will be processing LINk member expenses for activities that have been agreed in advance.

The Host is currently drafting a work plan for the three month period; further details will be issued once available. Many thanks for your continued interest and hard work in the LINk.

Head of Policy

Birmingham City Council
The Council House Extension,
2nd Floor,
Margaret Street,
Birmingham
B3 3BU"

Mental Health Economics - Why Has The Sun Gone Square?

2011-07-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

Mental Health Economics UK

Finally it happened : with all the rest of world economy going insane, the Sun squared up and started to get letters going across its face . We discovered "Sun Text" ... It was all too predictable though ... Shine on brightly ? Nah.... Whine on brightly squarely we say ..

At UserWatch we had cosmic warnings long ago of this from "One-bar" the alien from the planet Electric, who told us bullshit particles were massing on Earth more than anywhere in the universe . We also have a pet wolf and polar bear in the UserWatch office who act as "instinct compasses" that have sniffed the human air and vomited often ...

"Everyone in the Galaxy comes to study Earth because of the colliding forces which create so many virtual bullshit particles that have a nature to spin about and lie in one direction or another or another or another " - stated "One Bar" the alien . "Its a question of Rantum Physics (a planet Electric discovery) .... "

"Its fascinating" said "Switch Off" (from the same planet) - " Earth's bullshit particles are so vigorous and wiggly, you could mistake them for snakes - is this why you had a Garden of Eden with a skin shedding character in the original tale ? "

At UserWatch we agree with the true-aliens - take the new snake-soap therapies in the UK designed to get everyone back to work when there is no prospect of competing with the China syndrome and the hungry migrators whose own blasted out countries have enough death-in-life particles so you have to run away from them.

Iain Duncan Smith (UK Dept of Work & Pensions Secretary Of State ) - him of the: "kill the disabily fekkers club" - with work massing gassing camps, which also produce work for a company who employ a post SS tribe of Doctor Clipboardmen, whose corporate name looks like "HATE-US" , has stated in the Daily Flail that immigration to Britain has soaked up a lot of the available jobs that no-one who is kicked off disability benefits can get because the "migs" have them ..

Picture Courtesy : Silvis Rivers July 2011

Can you blame the "migs" (migrators) ?

Who wants to live in cratered existentialism in fucking useless economic countries where lower-end but high-volume production has emigrated to a factory in Wing Wang where the Wangsters live ..... ?

Logically in the mental health economy UK - you get CBT Cog-native tribe therapy to recover from depression from being out of work, only to become more realistically depressed about your death in life because a Wangster has got a job you might have had ..... Unless you just married a royal or live with £20 notes defecating from your arse like a banker who really needs stuffing with two barrels of high velocity shotgun pellets ..

Can we save the Sun from going square ? Is there a physics to protect us ?

No ...

No more than we can control our global social economies to produce for real needs and not half a world of bullshit. Remember, economics is dominated by the cheapest unit-price and the cheapest cost of labour and then you'll remember our own demands create hell sooner or later for someone. You clever recallers - you have defeated the fashion of amnesia.

Who needs balance ? Contradictions are maintained and we make the politico-economic particle winds we are pushed along by .

Take the "new" now mainly failing mental health services in the "recovery" sectors - where under Labour (2000 - 2010) so many false bureacracies propped up a kind of false service economy in mental health which some of the fitter mental health "recovered" Users traded off. In that diversionary costly economy (£3 - 400 million est.) - front line delivery never saw patient choices in mental health , and though some "patient choice" budgets were piloted - they were minimal - designed right at the end of a Labour Govt that prefered system economics and mass delivery as though everyone exists as clonal Cog-native types .

We can never forget a web post by a well known "Mental Nurse" who claimed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy was just another "tool in the kit" .. Yeah ... To tighten the loose nuts no doubt ... Who needs individuality when you can have state-top-down mechanics with their engineered contradictions and threads which do not fit individuals .

Put the Car-gnitive workers back to work producing invisible cars ?

The reforming Carbon Dioxide company "CO2" - does not need more car workers but rather eco-workers to harness a simpler economics after the hyper wave of burned out over production. We all need a gentler existence that is not dealing with the post trauma of post industrial family life and its mass class alienations but that might mean making the Sun round again .

See-ing the circularities of nature and mass particle build up of contradictions is way way overdue . Will the Sun give us time ?

Will we ?

Lets say a prayer in purple ....

Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust UserWatch

West Midlands Labour Party Where Are The #MH2 Activists?

#MH2 Stop Over-Medicating Child Abused Adults -Therapy First!

Trust Over-uses Restraints In Birmingham + No Audits For Child Abused Yet

Lets Audit Child Abuse Factors In Mental Health Birmingham Users First

Arts Banned At BSMFT Phoenix Mental Health Day Centre?

Totalisation Of The Birmingham Day Services to "Recovery" Services

NO MENTAL INDEPENDENT HEALTH MONITORS IN BIRMINGHAM UK

Alice And The Healing Bringer

The Unrecovered Country Eh ? Like The Unrecovered Self Circus Really

Flak Continues At Flickr

Flickr Staff Thea To Throw Towel In ?

25000 User Posts Later Flickr Claimed To Be "Failr"

Exclusive Yahoo CEO Stress Over Flickr Changes

Flickr Staff Ban Consumer Petition

Death Of Flickr - And the User Firestorm

[Official topic] Feedback on today’s site changes

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