Happy Anniversary

There are reasons, if not excuses, for this sudden blog after so long an absence. It's Lent. It was EDAW last week. It is the end of the financial year.   If it hadn't been this tome it would have been one of the others that is currently in drafts, probably going nowhere. I can't promise either to keep up my blogging or shut up, but here, for today, I go....
 
10 years ago I petitioned the Prime Minister to give more resources to the treatment of eating disorders. I know it was 10 years ago because the completed petition was sent to "Tony Blair" and answered by "Gordon Brown" All trace of the wording and reply has been archived to the uttermost depths of the Internet and I certainly can't find them. It was a general "give us (meaning primary care, secondary care, CAMHS, AMHS, parents and patients) more money" request and recieved a general "the government cares a lot about young people (no mention of persons over 18) and will of course invest" sort of answer. These were, after all, the days when we still remembered that Things Can Only Get Better

100s of petitions later we have a government that claims to have made that investment.You can sign a petition if you want to to hold them (or rather some of the clinicians they try to use as pawns in their games) to account on it if you want. Things honestly seem to have got a lot worse for many people but there are developments in community services and some of the general promises made by dear Gordon to me are being paid lip service at least.

Would I do it again? If I was newer to the issue, yes, probably. Now I'm too long in the tooth and cynical. I'm also hopeful that a decade on there is more that a mere parent can do, that there are better ways mums and dads (and partners and siblings) can get involved both in the treatment of their own loved ones and in the politics of health. Or am I being as naive as I was then?