Last Wednesday I received an email from Thomas Body, senior caseworker at the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman, informing me that he had been allocated my daughter Meg's complaint about CAMHS, Bramblys Drive, Basingstoke.
This is my reply to Thomas Body.
'Dear Thomas Brody,
Thank you for your email dated Wednesday the 8th October 2025 with updates to my daughter’s complaint against CAMHS.
While I want Meg to lead and manage her own complaint, I need to make you aware that I will be supporting her as her father and advocating on her behalf as her main carer. She is currently undergoing intense and distressing psychotherapy and is heavily medicated and, as such, is not always able to give her complaint the consistent attention that it deserves. Additionally, I have detailed evidence that supports her complaint which she might find difficult to articulate. I will forward that evidence, including the formal report into the actual therapy Meg received following a ‘fitness to practice’ complaint made by me about her psychotherapist at CAMHS, Mark Birbeck, to the Association of Child Psychotherapists later in 2023. That report makes a summary of the findings of an investigation that diverts much of the blame away from Mark Birbeck, the individual, and to CAMHS and the wider Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, the institution. I am fully aware that your own investigation will focus on the Trust, the institution. I will supply that report by the ACP separately within the next few days.
I have her permission to forward this document.
I want to clarify the concerns outlined by Meg and what she wanted you to consider. You have outlined the concerns as follows ( copied and pasted ) ;
1) The standard of therapy she received – she believes it was a ‘waste of time’ and says she was not listened to,
2) The transitional the adult mental health services – she says she should have been referred to the bridge centre sooner (when she started with CAMHS). She says she was not given enough ERP treatment.
3) She says she has been caused a lot of distress and upset, and her mental health has been adversely affected.
FIRST, the sub-standard therapy delivered to Meg while she was a patient at CAMHS throughout 2021 and the beginning of 2022 is the main subject of the investigation carried out by the ACP. Meg was suffering, and continues to suffer from severe and debilitating OCD. The ‘gold standard’ treatment for OCD is Exposure Response Prevention ( ERP ). Meg’s current psychotherapy regime at CMHT, The Bridge Centre, is couched in long-term ERP. This work, which started earlier this year, is delivering measurable improvement in Meg’s ability to manage her OCD. None of the psychotherapy delivered by Mark Birbeck at CAMHS had any appreciable effect on Meg’s OCD.
SECOND, Meg was NEVER offered ERP therapy while she was a patient at CAMHS. I initiated three meetings with her psychotherapist, Mark Birbeck, in order to express my concerns over his treatment of my daughter but he dismissed those concerns. I suggested that Meg’s mental health issues needed a more intense intervention, even raising the idea that she needed residential care. Mark Birbeck told me that he once worked with another patient who had OCD and reported some success and that he felt confident that he had the expertise to deliver similar improvements with Meg. He failed. There is no evidence in any of the records examined by the investigation carried out by the ACP that Mark Birbeck ever used ERP in his work with Meg.
( Meg was initially given 8 sessions of ERP while working with another therapist at CMHT, The Bridge Centre during the first few months of 2023. This limited therapy was partially successful in alleviating some of the less severe aspects of her OCD. It wasn’t until around March, 2025 that long-term psychotherapy was finally sanctioned by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.)
And THIRD, I don’t want the consequences of Meg’s negative experiences with CAMHS ever to be minimised, and neither does Meg. The adverse effect on her day to day lived experience as a result of clear clinical neglect by CAMHS has been truly horrific. I could give a long, itemised account of all the ways that Meg’s life has been compromised but, for now at least, I will write about the events that played out over 36 hours between Wednesday the 8th and Friday the 10th of October last week.
Just before settling down in bed on late on Wednesday evening, Meg alerted me to a large lump in her right ear lobe. I saw that it was grotesquely swollen, looking much like a ‘cauliflower ear’, an injury often sustained by boxers and rugby players whereby an external portion of the ear is hit and develops a blood clot or other collection of fluid.
The following afternoon, Meg attended our surgery in Old Basing where the GP recommended an immediate visit to A&E to have the injury drained. Unbelievably, Meg was signposted to Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. Apparently there are currently no ENT specialists working in our own local hospital in Basingstoke. We made our way to Frimley which is some 18 miles by car and waited in the A&E triage for 6 hours. According to reception and doctors working at Frimley Park Hospital, there are only two ENT specialists working in the hospital. Not only which but all patients seeking ENT medical attention at Basingstoke are routinely diverted to Frimley Park. That’s just two ENT specialist medical staff available to see ALL patients from Frimley to Basingstoke!! After waiting for 6 hours without being seen, Meg was advised to self-discharge and return the following morning. I protested until, eventually, one of the two ENT specialists agreed to book Meg in for a scheduled appointment the following morning at Basingstoke hospital.
Meg’s ear was cut, drained and stitched on Friday morning. She will be returning next Wednesday to have stitches removed.
Meg’s ear injury was caused by one of her more physically aggressive OCD rituals. Her most significant OCD rituals involve her hair which causes her such overwhelming distress that her ears are caught up in the compulsion. She ‘attacks’ her ears, especially her right ear, using her thumb with such force that I can hear the ‘rubbing’ in a neighbouring room. She often breaks the skin on her neck or the side of her face from friction burns but this was the first serious case that has affected her ear. Even so, I have been expecting this. I have repeatedly warned Meg and mental health staff at CMHT, The Bridge Centre that are involved in my daughter’s care of the potential of inadvertent self-harm but there is little that can be done other than follow the long road through her current ERP therapy.
In the meantime, Meg is at very serious risk of permanent injury. She might, conceivably, lose an ear
Now, here is the real point that I want to make.
Meg’s continued suffering and distress could so easily have been avoided.
Meg was taken, by me, to CAMHS, Bramblys Drive, Basingstoke, in December, 2018 with serious mental health issues including debilitating OCD.
Meg did not begin receiving the current intensive ERP treatment at CMHT, The Bridge Centre, until around March this year.
In between there has been over SIX YEARS of clinical neglect!
While blame for a portion of those six years and four months of clinical neglect currently lies with Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, CAMHS, Bramblys Drive, Basingstoke and the former Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust remain entirely liable for the first THREE YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS.
I can, and will, outline in detail ALL incidents and events, including systemic and institutional failures that directly and notably contributed to my daughter’s current distress, discomfort and pain.
I am left in no doubt that if Meg had been attended to in a timely, professional and competent manner then she would have already made a significant, if not, full recovery.
I am already aware of the counter-arguments likely to be offered by the Trust in response to you next line of questioning as they were already used to defend Meg’s former psychotherapist at CAMHS, Mark Birbeck. I will pre-empt those counter-arguments and offer the rebuttals that I forwarded to the investigators at the ACP, along with their report summary sent to me in 2023 to you at the PHSO in the coming days.'
