And have you got any message for health professionals or other professionals?

Just spend more money on mental health issues. It’s a huge problem. I understand that more people in the UK take their lives each year than are killed in road traffic accidents.

Just provide more help. I mean the ward where Simon was treated has been closed down now.

For lack of funds?

Well the idea that people can be treated better in the community I think. I’m sure, all for very admirable reasons, [but] there also needs to be some half-way house between this sort of confinement where you’re with people who are overtly unwell and perhaps a place like the clinic where Simon was where people are not overtly unwell but who are highly intelligent who are capable of saying whatever needs to be said. There needs to be somewhere that doesn’t need to be funded at thousands of pounds a week by the families, where people can go to where they can feel safe or where they can get the help, where they can get the right help (…). We wanted him out of there [the hospital]. It felt like confinement. I think the clinic was the right place for him, but at £4000 a week.

Oh I see. So you would like something similar and available free?

Yes absolutely.