Hello everyone, my name is Andrew Gordon and I hail from Basildon in Essex!
Having spent six or seven years in and out of psychiatric services and one year in a Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Unit I have developed a passion for mental health and an in-depth insight into the psychiatric system in the United Kingdom.
If you go through my patient records you will find I have been diagnoses with; psychosis, adjustment disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bi-polar, adjustment disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. It is not clinically possible to have all these, which is why I am a huge advocate for treating people with mental health conditions primarily as individuals before conditions.
Psychiatric and mental well-being services in the United Kingdom need a revolution, often they can be focused on the containment of an individual as opposed to providing someone with the self-management tools to recover.
My work primarily focuses on recovery focused interventions and the empowerment of patient leaders however I also have a keen interest in local government, I have spent four years as a Local Authority Councillor and am a huge supporter of The Local Authorities Mental Health Challenge .
In my spare time I am an online gamer and build my own computers – as a huge techie I also feel technology is opening up new frontiers for society and both the NHS and Local Government need to embrace this. I also am a keen volunteer spending some of my weekend on the local SOS bus.
If you want to read a bit more about me you can find out even more here.
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