I WOULD like on behalf of the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust to add my name to the growing number of people who have congratulated your paper on its publication of the article about schizophrenia (Evening Advertiser, September 16).

Our admiration goes chiefly to Steve Holmes who spoke out so clearly about his experience and recovery. I hope his courage will have gone some way towards changing attitudes to mental health issues in Swindon.

On the same page your paper wrote about services available to people needing help with mental health crisis. I am very sorry to have to correct a misunderstanding in this. The service you described as available at the moment is in fact the new one we are developing.

From the end of this year, specialist crisis workers will be on duty from 9am to 9pm Monday to Friday and for six hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

This is in contrast to now, where our service can only work office hours (apart from the in-patient service) and the only help outside these hours is from GPs, a duty psychiatric doctor and the Social Services Emergency Duty Service.

Although we would prefer to be announcing that crisis services were being made available 24 hours a day, our current funding does not yet allow us to provide such a service.

Because it is one of the Government's key targets for Mental Health Services, Swindon Primary Care Trust, which funds us to provide mental health services, is doing its best to help extend this in future.

However, other demands on the PCT's resources sadly mean that 2,000 mental health service users and their families in Swindon will have to wait longer for a comprehensive 24 hours a day service.

Meanwhile, I hope that this wait will be made easier for them by the continued support and understanding of the Evening Advertiser and its readers.

SHAREEN CAMPBELL

Locality Manager

Avon & Wiltshire

Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Highworth Road

Swindon