Being a parent of a beautiful child that is currently going through this process I understand the complexities that arise from having a child that has different needs. It not only affects the individual but the whole family as a unit. Research tells us that THOUSANDS of young girls are getting misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed due to a lack of awareness and MALE BIASED assessments. Meanwhile this leaves the families crying out for help and more importantly our children suffering unnecessary anxiety, stress and a low quality of life. As a parent all we want is for our children to be safe, healthy and happy. Our children have a right to a fair assessment and service.The whole autism process is way too complicated, frustrating, inconsistent and can take years to attain a diagnosis. No diagnosis no help. Individuals with autism are NINE times more likely to die prematurely, with suicide being the principal cause. This figure could potentially be a lot HIGHER if girls are getting missed. Many girls will have either have been dismissed as a problem child or driven by their overwhelming anxiety and depression into an already underfunded mental health service. We as a society always focus on our physical wellbeing, yet both emotional and physical walk hand in hand. There is an urgent need for the government to address this GENDER BIAS and ensure ALL KEY PROFESSIONALS across the UK are trained and made aware of the differences. Additionally ALL AUTISM SCREENING TOOLS need to include the subtle autistic traits of girls to ensure fairness and consistency. Awareness, early diagnosis and intervention is all that is needed to help our children. Please sign this life changing petition to ensure that no female child or adult gets overlooked or misdiagnosed and suffer unnecessarily. http://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight-opinion/interview-dr-judith-gould-women-and-girls http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15332985.2015.1031858 http://autismwomensnetwork.org/autistic-women-misdiagnosis-and-the-importance-of-getting-it-right/ http://www.iancommunity.org/cs/simons_simplex_community/autism_in_girls http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/apr/05/autism-learning-disability-premature-mortality

R D Laing is one of the most important figures in mental health treatment. His important work should be acknowledged and celebrated.

The health centre, which has been in place for over thirty years, is no longer fit for purpose. Structurally the building requires significant investments for the level of repairs required and the level of capacity it is no longer able to accommodate the increasing demands placed upon it. In an area which has higher than both the Fife and Scottish levels of multiple health problems we need a Health Centre which is able to support the increasing population and provide support for the varying degrees of mental and physical support that the people of Lochgelly deserve.

MCCH Aspirations helps at least 10 citizens of Shepway per day who are recovering from mental health issues, back into work and training. For many this is a life line, providing support in their darkest hour to gain hope to be a contributing member of society once again. They get results too.

This is important because bullying affects thousands of children across the UK and whether it be in, primary, secondary or college it can affect them greatly. When I was in school I was bullied very severely and it led to many future problems that I then had to deal with myself because of the bullies I had. Bullying can lead to a variety of different problems from anxiety to self harm. I myself when through self harm and am still dealing with it now, three years later, I am so far beating the urge, but the feeling is still there and I hate to think that so many other children are going through the same thing that I went through. There is a statistic that shows 1 in 30 children self harm, which works out 1 child per classroom, which to me is an outrage and if stopping bullying or at least doing more to prevent it, can reduce that statistic, I think a lot more children would be happier. Bullying doesn't necessarily mean a child will self harm, but I feel that if you are bullied is does knock your confidence, no matter who you are, it will knock you. If schools started to put in place real policies and procedures for bullying, like a zero tolerance rule and go through with real consequences then bullying will cut down. When i was in school I would often go to my headteacher with the fact that i was being bullied, and nothing was ever done about it. It got to the point where my mum would call in, but still nothing was done. I feel like this probably happens for a lot of other students, and I think school staff should take it a lot more serious than they do and actually do something when a student comes to them about being bullied. Children are often too scared to go and tell someone, children should be able to feel like they can talk to someone if they're being bullied. I would like to start this campaign against schools dealing with bullying. Eventually i would like to be able to go into schools and do talks about bullying, and maybe ask children to fill in a confidential survey about bullying with questions such as: Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever bullied someone? Has there been any consequences for your bullies? Has there been any consequences because you bullied someone? Has there been any consequences on yourself as a person because you've been bullied? What do you feel when you bully someone? Do you get anything out of it? I could then use these surveys to get statistics to use in other talks and to help show the severity of bullying in certain schools. This is an issue very close to my heart as i don't want children to have to feel the same way that I did when I stepped into school and to have to face the same issues that I did. I know the world is never going to be rid of bullying completely, but if i can at least make a small change in some schools across the UK, it would give me a great sense of achievement and i feel like it would benefit a lot of children.

Our high streets are being taken over by betting companies whose business model is to create and exploit gambling addictions. This isn’t about placing the odd bet on a football match or horse race. Bookies use their electronic gambling machines to filter out that casual crowd: they’re looking for people with the potential for a serious gambling addiction. Fixed-odds betting terminals feed a dependency just as powerful as drugs or alcohol. Their high speed games, with stakes as high as £100 every twenty seconds, mean you can easily lose a month’s wages in under an hour. Eventually you realise you’re not doing it for the money – you’re doing it because you’re physically addicted to the rush. I’ve lost numerous jobs because of electronic gambling. I’ve lost two properties through failure to keep up with mortage payments, I've amassed £100,000s in debt, I’m separated from my wife and children, and I’m trapped in a situation where I can’t rent accommodation because my credit score is so low and I haven’t enough money for a deposit. Now I’ve got special blocks on my computer that stop me straying onto a betting site – I even had to disable them to set up this petition. We can do something to change the tide of misery and reclaim our high streets. We can sign this petition.

It can not be right in a civilised and fair society that children should be placed in poverty and disadvantaged because of the failure by successive governments to effectively manage the British economy.

Good nutrition is essential to patients recovering in hospital. We believe that fruit and vegetables should be free to people in hospital. We are fully aware that the funding for such a idea is not there, however we are also aware that supermarkets throw away millions of pounds worth of perfectly healthy fresh fruit and vegetables every year and we want to stop this waste. We want supermarkets to deliver the fresh fruit and vegetables to local hospitals, where it will be available to patients. We want the hospital sweet trolley to be replaced by a free fruit trolley. Help us stop this waste and bring essential healing nutrition to the people that need it the most.

In 2007 consultation on mental health facilities in north Essex gave rise to lively public meetings which resulted in the ward being saved, but in 2016 there was NO consultation because apparently moving a ward to another hospital in another town so long as it bears the same name is NOT a closure!!! At the very least, N.E.P.T. (North Essex Partnership Trust predecessors along with S.E.P.T. South Essex Partnership Trust, to E.P.U.T. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust) should have held a new consultation process, but our feeling is still, along with the views and sentiments expressed by many eleven years ago, that nothing has changed, except that the facilities in Clacton needed revising including to allow for NHS single sex privacy and dignity accommodation, for which there was ample space available by using the adjacent and connected former Freeland Court. While people are often sent many miles away to find an available bed, we contended that mental health services could ill afford to lose beds in Clacton, though we would have welcomed extra beds in Colchester, but in addition, not instead of! As we were protesting the Colchester move we learnt from a whistleblower that the trust intended to downgrade the ward to an assessment centre, making a mockery of their assertion that the ward would be exactly the same in it's new location and if true, this would be a very definite change of service demanding thorough consultation! This was vehemently denied at the time but now we learn, not even 18 months later that service changes are being considered and this time, unlike the move, they do intend to consult! If after a wide consultation among all stakeholders including professionals, staff and public it can be demonstrated that the consulted changes would be in the best interest of patients, we shall be content, though we do not believe it will. If, as we are led to believe, the plans are indeed to downgrade Peter Bruff from an acute ward to an assessment centre this will amount to a de facto loss of 17 beds at a time of continuing high occupancy and the likelihood exists that patients needing continuing acute care may not find a bed within Colchester hospital and maybe forced to travel many miles away to find one. Two years ago we raised concerns over the difficulties many living in Clacton would face accessing Colchester. "With Colchester being about 15 miles away from Clacton concern was raised for patients who when discharged would face an expensive taxi bill or the prospect of at least two buses, train, long walk or combination! This distance would also likely make it difficult for many reasons, perhaps financial, for friends and families of patients to visit. Day visits and weekend visits home, for those recovering all made that more difficult when recovery itself is difficult enough!" 15 miles may soon seem like wishful thinking! And all this mainly on the pretext of saving the money spent on rent at Clacton!. Here's what we found out about that! " N.E.P.T. did not own the Clacton Peter Bruff Ward, but RENTED it from NHS Properties!! This was one of their excuses for wishing to CLOSE, I mean, MOVE the ward so as to save money on rent, but a freedom of information request revealed that N.E.P.T. were in fact only paying a "PEPPERCORN RENT!" https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/346733/response/855134/attach/2/FOI%20190716%2001%20reply%2018.8.16.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1 Safeguarding the service as it is may well be within our gift. It is doubtless thanks to everyone's efforts that E.P.U.T. are contemplating any consultation whatsoever because our first notification from a whistleblower indicated a fait d'compli. Well done everyone! I still dream that the day will come when we can "Keep Peter Bruff Ward Open In CLACTON!

This is important because I believe there is not enough investment in either of these services and the people of our country do not need to stand by and let politicians dither over the future of them, when we, as a country can help.

It is majorly important as suicide and other issues regarding mental health has effected each and everyone of us in some way. Suicide rates are increasing, self harm is becoming normal especially among teenagers. As a teenager myself who has seen the effects mental health has on others, I strongly feel that funding is needed. In this day and age a lot of young people feel like there is little or no help out there and I feel that education from young age will help teenagers to take care of their mental health and in turn, prevent things such as depression and suicide.

Brief summary of the NHS Bill In short, the Bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service by reversing 25 years of marketization in the NHS, by abolishing the purchaser-provider split, ending contracting and re-establishing public bodies and public services accountable to local communities. This is necessary to stop the dismantling of the NHS under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It is driven by the needs of local communities. Scotland and Wales have already reversed marketization and restored their NHS without massive upheaval. England can too. The Bill gives flexibility in how it would be implemented, led by local authorities and current bodies. It would: 1.) Reinstate the government’s duty to provide the key NHS services throughout England, including hospitals, medical and nursing services, primary care, mental health and community services, 2.) Integrate health and social care services, 3.) Declare the NHS to be a “non-economic service of general interest” and “a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority” so asserting the full competence of Parliament and the devolved bodies to legislate for the NHS without being trumped by EU competition law and the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services, 4.) Abolish the NHS Commissioning Board (NHS England) and re-establish it as a Special Health Authority with regional committees, 5.) Plan and provide services without contracts through Health Boards, which could cover more than one local authority area if there was local support, 6.) Allow local authorities to lead a ‘bottom up’ process with the assistance of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts and NHS England to transfer functions to Health Boards, 7.) Abolish NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts and CCGs after the transfer by 1st January 2018, 8.) Abolish Monitor – the regulator of NHS foundation trusts, commercial companies and voluntary organisations – and repeal the competition and core marketization provisions of the 2012 Act, 9.) Integrate public health services, and the duty to reduce inequalities, into the NHS, 10.) Re-establish Community Health Councils to represent the interest of the public in the NHS, 11.) Stop licence conditions taking effect which have been imposed by Monitor on NHS foundation trusts and that will have the effect of reducing by April 2016 the number of services that they currently have to provide, 12.) Require national terms and conditions under the NHS Staff Council and Agenda for Change system for relevant NHS staff, 13.) Centralise NHS debts under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the Treasury, require publication of PFI contracts and also require the Treasury to report to Parliament on reducing NHS PFI debts, 14.) Abolish the legal provisions passed in 2014 requiring certain immigrants to pay for NHS services 15.) Declare the UK’s agreement to the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and other international treaties affecting the NHS to require the prior approval of Parliament and the devolved legislatures, 16.) Require the government to report annually to Parliament on the effect of treaties on the NHS.