Published: 29 July, 2010
by TOM FOOT

A FATHER whose son suffers from a severe mental illness has written a book about the “pitiful inadequacy” and “total failure” of Camden’s care system.

Belsize Park author Tim Salmon has published selections of correspondence from his fraught 20-year battle with officials and top bosses at the Royal Free Hospital and Camden’s mental health trust.

The book reveals a “general neglectfulness” from social workers, a conspiracy of “unintelligible jargon” and concludes a recent trend of treating schizophrenic patients outside secure hospitals is “ill-thought out, ill-coordinated, and ill-funded”.

Schizophrenia – Who Cares? comes with an endorsement from the celebrated writer Nina Bawden CBE, who says she was “reduced to both tears and laughter” by the “proper page-turner”.

Mr Salmon said: “My experience is that all of us who find ourselves in this same boat share pretty much the same experiences, the same griefs, the same terrors, the same foolish moments of hope, the same anger and frustration at the almost total failure of the ‘care system’ as we know it in this country to provide for our sick children and relatives.”

Mr Salmon, who wrote the Rough Guide to France for 10 years, said his book was a tribute to the “sheer dogged bloody minded courage” of his son, now 43 years old and living in Camden.

“Jeremy” – the fake name used in the book to protect his son’s identity – went “mad”, in Mr Salmon’s words, after leaving university, a time when he should have been “full of hope and innocent excitement”.

He had just split up with his girlfriend, but it is unclear whether this triggered the condition.

Jeremy began hearing voices, believing he was hounded by Nigerian gangsters, sometimes insisting he was off to meet Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and once drove his car off a bridge into the River Thames.

Mr Salmon said: “It came like a thunder bolt into my life. He appeared to belong in a different, even alien dimension of existence.”

A chapter is devoted to an 18-year search for his son’s “Care Plan” – a detailed programme for patients being discharged from hospital, which did not exist. 

Mr Salmon criticises the “idiotic rhetoric of political correctness” – phrases like “journey of recovery”, “therapeutic optimism” and “flexible pathways” – swamping the health service. 

The book reveals how Jeremy was left waiting in the Royal Free for 12 months longer than necessary because Camden Council could not find him a suitable home.

Mr Salmon said: “My principal concerns are about the discharge system. People with schizophrenia need peace and quiet.

“What I think is needed is a modern version of the asylum – somewhere safe where they can be looked after. 

“All this pious Care in the Community stuff – it’s nonsense. 

“It hasn’t been thought through properly.”

A spokesman for Camden and Islington Foundation Trust said: “The care of people with mental health issues in Camden has been radically transformed over the last decade, with over 90 per cent of it now being delivered in the community.

“We have invested significantly in creating better facilities for stays in hospital, all wards now having bedrooms with en-suite facilities. 

• Schizophrenia – Who Cares? is available at Daunt bookshops in South End Green and Belsize Park, Owl bookshop in Kentish Town or online at www.timsalmon.org