A Complaint to the Chair of the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust. Tony Warne, Where's Your Response?
I believe your trust is violating my Article 3 rights of the Human Rights Act 1998, by subjecting me to inhumane and degrading treatment. I really do not want to go to court against the NHS.
Dear Tony Warne, Chair of the Greater Manchester Health Mental Health Trust,
I believe that the actions of the Greater Manchester Mental Health trust have now reached the level of violating my fundamental human rights, namely the right from freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
I am strugging from severe complex post-traumatic stress, as well as several other disabilities which have been diagnosed by the NHS, including OCD, ADHD, depression, anxiety and autism. Your trust is doing nothing to help me at this moment in time, other than providing me appointments for a mental health worker which are entirely pointless as we are unable to progress without a therapist in place who is obviously needed.
To begin, your trust has repeatedly breached the Equality Act 2010 by failing to provide reasonable adjustments for someone with a disability, for which there is no excuse as the NHS is a multi-million pound organisation, as well as continuously refusing to accept the Community Mental Health Team referral despite fitting the criteria under the Care Act 2014. Additionally, it turns out that my local Community Mental Health Team has no psychologists that are trained in mental health trauma healthcare. I must ask what the point of running a mental health team is without having any trauma therapists?
As a current patient of NHS Greater Manchester Mental Health, I have received inappropriate treatment, time, and time again. I have also been cut off from waiting lists several times as I have been priced out of my area, put on a waiting list, and then put back on the same waiting list I was on before, without any regard for the fact that I have been homeless four times in the last eight years. Additionally, I have been given in the past mostly time-limited therapy for eight to twelve sessions which is clearly inappropriate and quite frankly insane for someone with CPTSD and ten other mental health conditions
It’s a complete slap to the face when I have severe, and enduring mental health problems and I’m on Universal Credit, unable to afford private therapy, so I am forced to interact with the appalling levels of care in the NHS.
You may say that the trust no longer has an obligation if I move out of area for my local Community Mental Health Teams, but your Community Mental Health Teams in Manchester are split up into no less than six community mental health teams in Greater Manchester alone, which means that if you move house just even slightly, you lose eligibility.
My question is to you, who is this system helping? This is exactly how people fall through the cracks, and this system is inhumane if after eight years, I have still not received proper trauma therapy under the NHS.
I have been passed from Step 2, to Step 3, to Step 3+, and by the time I get seen, I am pretty sure your trust will invent a Step 4 and a Step 5 to prevent people from actually seeing a therapist. There is no point making me go through all these hoops if it is very obvious that I need intensive trauma therapy, and at one point, your trust actually never even submitted my referral to Step 2, requiring a PALS complaint to get further. I should not have to submit PALS complaints to get care.
I have been given so many leaflets for the Samaritans without any actionable further help that, quite frankly, you start wondering whether the NHS is actually solely responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon. It is unacceptable and inexcusable to keep giving me these things as a way of getting me out of the hospital without any further follow-up, which is what has happened in my case.
I have been abused in several hospitals by mental health nurses over the last few years. I have been repeatedly yelled at, ignored, belittled, and patronised by several colleagues of the NHS, who have proceeded to put down in my records that I suffer from Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (several psychiatrists have confirmed that I do not) maliciously, and this is now permanently on my record.
I have Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I would like an official apology for this, as well as a permanent correction on my mental health records. I also have several witnesses of the nurses’ behaviour taking place in the hospitals your trust operates in.
I have been given so many mental health assessments that have resulted in no help. I have been the subject of multiple multi-disclipinary team meetings, as well as multi-agency meetings. And somehow, despite me reiterating my history over, and over again, your trust still refuses to acknowledge that the emotional distress and pain that each and every one of the pointless assesssments has put me in. I have been in a very, very intrusive social care assessment with one CMHT, only to be told that they are not able to provide help at the end, and they knew that they couldn’t provide help at the time.
In addition, I have been illegally detained by the police in Wythenshawe Hospital following a suicide attempt, and there is evidence of this on paper on my medical records. Despite this, the NHS has taken no action to stop me from being illegally detained without a power in use. I am also taking action against the Greater Manchester Police as this was not a proportionate use of power. I have also been told multiple times that I was an aggressive individual for asserting my own rights, which in my opinion, is a type of misogyny.
In addition, there appears to be a culture of discrimination against transgender individuals. I have numerous pieces of paperwork where I have been misgendered and deadnamed by Greater Manchester Mental Health staff members, despite the clear and obvious Female on the top of the form that they are filling out. I have also seen my other transgender friends go through the same treatment. Could you please explain why these things keep happening in the NHS?
Finally, I have been banned from the local hospital, Wythenshawe Hospital, as a result of an adverse reaction to a medication, escitalopram, where this has caused me to enter a very severe flight or fight response, which was interpreted as aggression and the police were called, which resulted in a Community Resolution Order. Again, this will be challenged with the police, but my question to the trust is why was the GMMH team at Wythenshawe Hospital not called?
All the mental health workers have informally agreed that calling the police was entirely inappropriate and an abuse of the trust violence policy, and yet I am the one who now is in fear when a siren goes past, as I was tackled by the security guards and everything, despite literally having a diagnosis of PTSD.
As a result of this, as well as several other violations of my human rights by the NHS, which can be found on my website here, I offer three potential resolutions:
The NHS finds me a therapist by 5th October, 2025, giving the NHS one month to do so. I would be happy with either an NHS provided therapist that is suitably trained in trauma therapy, intersectionality, and any suitable therapies such as EMDR but not CBT, as this is not an effective treatment for me. I would not take any further legal action.
If this cannot be arranged due to a lack of resources, then the NHS can provide me a private therapist at no cost to me in order to cover this clear and obvious shortfall in the service. This will certainly be cheaper than the thousands of pounds the NHS is currently spending on me ending up in A&E and requiring medical attention from my suicide attempts. I would also not take any further legal action against the NHS.
If all fails, I will be forced to take legal action against the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust under the Human Rights Act 1998 under Article 3 under Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, for the issues mentioned above, as well as me going through my 500 page GMMH Subject Access Request record and highlighting every problem with GMMH.
I really do not want to do this, especially given my mental health, and also it would be a waste of time for everyone involved; but considering that informal complaints, formal complaints, and PALS complaints have gotten nowhere, I would be left with no other option.
I hope that you engage with my local mental health team to provide me the therapy I so desperately require, rather than me having to resort to taking the legal route.
I believe in the NHS, and I think that the NHS is important, but the way I have been treated by the NHS is completely, and utterly unacceptable, and the NHS must be held accountable for its actions.
Yours sincerely and kindest regards,
Emily Elżbieta Chomicz
A copy of this letter will be emailed to you at communications@gmmh.nhs.uk. I expect your reply within 28 days, as this is a reasonable amount of time to give an answer to my letter. I will record your reply and/or lack of reply publicly on my Substack, excluding our personal data as per GDPR legislation.