1:11am

We managed to get beyond the barriers and park the car, by phoning and getting someone to swipe the keypad and let us in. So I was apprehensive about how we would get out!

We arrived in time, and got to sit for about 40 minutes...waiting. I realized i felt that watching the people in the outside area is the only safe way to look at the people locked up here.  Eye contact or any contact prevented by the doors and windows..I noticed how the back wall was covered in an out of focus image of a field of sunflowers. 

Poor Van Gogh.

Then suddenly we were called into the meeting. 5 people..a nurse, someone from the home visit team, a social worker, the psychiatrist and someone else..

The psychiatrist was definitely a character from a Tim Burton movie, exuberant and light on his feet...

Nevertheless, this meeting was an ordeal. Service User proved that he has 'capacity' and we the parents made it clear that we felt betrayed by the hospital, and the psychiatrist who had seen him on the trauma ward...

And...

We got out with a discharge.