Who is Simon Wessely?

Hi Valerie, sorry for taking a while to reply – had a crash unfortunately but hopefully working my way back to baseline now.


That’s really sad and frustrating to hear that despite trying to get the ME charities to hear you, you weren’t listened to. I’m very glad that the charities exist, but the scale of the issues that people with ME and related illnesses face is so enormous that we desperately need them to be taking every opportunity to progress, and and I really don’t feel like there’s adequate support relative to that.


I’m sure funding plays a part but it’s clearly not just that. Recently we’ve seen Carers UK organising a petition to hand to the new Labour government, the Lib Dems putting care at the centre of their campaign (and Emily Davey having MS), a public enquiry about the government failings during the Covid pandemic, a recent article about Maeve Boothby O’Neill and Sajid Javid, and I think; ‘come on ME charities, where are you? This is such an opening for you to capitalise on!’ Then… nothing (or nothing publicised anyway).

I know I’m preaching to the converted but at least you know others validate your views and feel so much more needs to be done too. I wish I had the know-how or energy to change things and thank you again for trying!

 

That is so ridiculous. There has never been a time when the world was all roses and joy.

But this can only be read as an admission of failure for his model, which I doubt he understands or would agree with. It's true that mental health care is terrible and doesn't deliver. But it should be improved, not cancelled. The man has made a career out of psychologizing real illnesses, and this is a huge part why mental health services are struggling so hard. They're inundated with people who have medical issues that those services cannot handle. Which in return floods medical services with the same patients, whose problems are never fixed but more resources are wasted for worse results in a never-ending loop of failure.

Wessely is the person who trashed the house and complains that it's very messy. His approach reminds of a hilarious quote I saw about U2: in trying to make music that everyone likes, they ended up making music that nobody likes. People like him have only degraded the quality of medicine with generic trash. The best way forward would be to can this horrible biopsychosocial model and the people responsible for it, and reform the traditional top down aristocratic/technocratic model of health care. That he remains influential is such absurd failure.

 

All physical symptoms are signs of mental illness, but mental illness doesn't exist. Handy in getting rid of the pesky patients, but he may not have quite thought this out if he wants to hang on to his esteemed career.

These musings might draw attention, and some journalists and colleagues might start digging and find out that his eminence is built on sand.

 

It is due to the Goldacre Effect, when usually skeptical people hold a far lower standard of evidence for psychological explanations of physical syndromes than physical explanations. Somebody should write an MEPedia article about it.

 

Just adding this here Deb Cohen did the news night piece and is friends with Garner.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1827283178035269857

 

This one, I think:
https://s4me.info/threads/paul-garn...les-and-other-media.15629/page-60#post-337940

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok-0Jmh-7PQ

 

Deb Cohen also did this on micro lots

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-07-12...-abroad-for-expensive-and-unproven-treatments

 

Just looked her up. She has a medical degree then became a fellow in Evidence Based medicine at Oxford. With her journalism quals in between.

It looks like she worked in investigations for the BMJ at some point.

 

Does she have her own page here yet? I wonder if it might be useful if not?

 

Does anyone know who Wessely and co use as lawyers?
For instance, the Tribunal where it was decided that PACE trial data, or a portion of it, could be released, c 2015. This followed Alem Mathees FOI request.

All info re above or any other instances gratefully received by person asking the question.

@Valerie Eliot Smith

 

Thanks for the mention @MEMarge. I'd seen this question at its original source.

The question itself is something of a red herring as anyone could simply raise it directly as part of an initial inquiry to a law firm. If a potential conflict of interest were to become apparent later on, the lawyer(s) concerned would be under a duty to disclose it.

Client confidentiality is an issue so the main routes for discovering which firms might have represented any member of the psych lobby (a very wide grouping) would be through:

a) Having authorised access to information about a case

b) The information appearing in a published judgment where the legal representatives of each party are given

c) Reliable anecdotal information

Random searches might come up with something but it would be a long task and might yield nothing useful. Consultations with lawyers which have not resulted in further action would not normally be visible.

Simon Wessely was not directly involved in the FOI Tribunal hearing that you mention. According to my blog post of that time, QMUL was represented by solicitors Mills & Reeve https://valerieeliotsmith.com/2016/...d-matthees-tribunal-hearing-and-open-justice/

ETA: Simon's son, Alex, works at Leigh Day solicitors. This is the firm that represented the two ME patients, Fraser and Short, in the 2009 judicial review of the 2007 NICE guideline (way before Alex joined). It was a disaster. Avoid.

 

It’s rather fake isn’t it. And for them it’s ‘all the cliches rolled into one’. It seems like comedy a parody of a real investigative report . Would love Diane Morgan to to a few programmes on this taking the mick out of their techniques she’d do a brilliant job

Or Like someone who’s to put together an advert to tackle bad press - in that vein I almost imagine being a teenager at school having such tasks to do as a group, or when you are learning to do short videos course and have to as a group put together something a few mins long

it’s almost like even they as the makers don’t believe themselves and have their tongue in cheek at getting away with saying what they do

 

Many thanks @Valerie Eliot Smith.
Have sent your response to the person asking the question, who is closely involved with the inquest.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1842706744796938710



Twenty-one years ago today. @TheScotsman, 6th October 2003. Apparently the piece that got Margaret Cook allegedly sacked from the paper after @WesselyS complained.