A mental health support service which has helped hundreds of adults in West Berkshire says it will close if the NHS presses ahead with a decision to withdraw its support.<\/p>\n
Recovery in Mind delivers free courses to people experiencing mental health challenges without the need for a GP referral.<\/p>\n
Recovery in Mind runs out of Broadway House<\/p>\n
For the past 10 years the organisation has enjoyed the help, expertise and experience of two part-time occupational therapists \u2013 paid and employed by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BHFT) \u2013 who have worked solely with Recovery in Mind designing and delivering its specialist courses.<\/p>\n
But Angela Ryan, who set up and leads the \u2018recovery college\u2019, says she\u2019s been told by BHFT that the two mental health professionals will be redeployed later this summer to other community work.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a decision, she says, that puts the service at risk as it will be impossible for the organisation to find any additional funding elsewhere to fund replacing the roles.<\/p>\n
She explained: \u201cThey will stop working at Recovery in Mind at the end of July 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecovery in Mind will therefore have no professional mental health trainers, which means we cannot continue to offer our service in its present form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angela Ryan from Recovery in Mind<\/p>\n
A message on the organisation\u2019s website explains it can no longer accept new clients to courses at Broadway House.<\/p>\n
Angela says she will spend the next 12 months winding down services \u2013 ending support to all existing students by next spring.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe will be running a range of courses this summer term in an endeavour to \u2018end pieces of work\u2019 and start signposting existing students on to other local community resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, from September 2026 until the end of March 2027 we will be running a small selection of workshops only for current Recovery in Mind students with the closure of our service in spring 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know from the feedback from professionals, that our service has been highly valued by students and the people who encourage them to attend, so it is with much sadness that we find ourselves in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angela says with services oversubscribed she cannot understand the decision. Picture: iStock. Mental health stock image<\/p>\n
Angela, who started Recovery in Mind as a result of her own mental health challenges, and because of a lack of a recovery college in West Berkshire, describes the decision as short sighted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a community effort and I\u2019m very disappointed that BHFT have decided not to see the value in supporting present and possible future adults who require mental health support via access to a Recovery College in our community of West Berkshire,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems ironic that at a time when mental ill health is on the rise, services are oversubscribed and resources are scarce they have made this decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
BHFT said in a statement: \u201cFor the past 10 years, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has funded a full-time occupational therapist role, seconded from our community mental health services, to work with Recovery in Mind in West Berkshire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognise that the decision to end this secondment from 31 July 2026 will be disappointing for those involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis follows a careful review of how we deploy our specialist clinical workforce to best meet the needs of local people.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur priority is to ensure that people with the most significant and complex mental health needs can access the right clinical support at the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, our West Berkshire community mental health team, which supports around 1,000 residents with a serious mental illness (SMI), does not have occupational therapy input.<\/p>\n
\u201cReturning this role to the team will help strengthen support for people\u2019s recovery and reduce the risk of avoidable hospital admissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe value the contribution that Recovery in Mind makes to the local system and are continuing to work with them and our partners to explore how we can support its ongoing offer in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mental health support service which has helped hundreds of adults in West Berkshire says it will close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523,157874],"class_list":{"0":"post-391477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth","13":"tag-newbury"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}