It's #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, so here's one of the last photos of me & my lovely mum.

When she was sectioned a few months before, she promised me she would be out to see me graduate, and she was.

She died a few months after this was taken, failed by mental health services.

Awareness is extremely important - my mum was ashamed that she was sick - someone who is unwell should never, ever feel ashamed of it.

But awareness isn't enough. My mum knew she was becoming ill again, she actively reached out for mental health care and it wasn't there.

The year before she died, when she was sectioned, she only received care when she was extremely unwell. A few weeks beforehand I took her to A&E to try to get help and we were turned away. She easily could have died then.

When she did die, she had reached out to services for weeks without getting the help she needed. She was in a (likely purposeful) major car accident - and was again sent home from A&E with no support. 2 days later she died.

What happened to my mum was not one horrible tragedy in one mental health trust. It's systemic. Hundreds of people have died due to these failures, and thousands will have suffered when they could have had treatment. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/05/hundreds-of-mental-health-patients-dying-after-nhs-care-failures

Mental health needs to be properly funded, taken as seriously by government as physical health. That is not happening right now. Write to your MP, tell them about my mum and the people like her who have been failed by MH services. Demand change.