Compassion Was Never Optional

It’s the glue. The ground. The point.

There’s something quiet happening in mental health services right now.

It’s not a dramatic restructure, not a scandal splashed across the headlines.

It’s subtler than that.

And more dangerous.

Compassion is being quietly reframed as inefficient.

Relational care — the kind that actually holds people — is being seen as a luxury.

People who’ve been supported for years are suddenly being discharged,

medication plans are being changed without discussion,

and the human beings at the centre of it all are being treated like numbers on a caseload.

And the system is calling it progress.

But if you’ve been in this field — or felt it closely — you’ll know this isn’t progress.

This is something else.

This is what happens when presence gets replaced by policy,

when humanity becomes an afterthought to the budget.

On paper, it looks great.

Fewer patients.

Faster throughput.

Lower spend.

But what’s the cost?

People left without support they relied on.

Medication changes that destabilise years of careful balance.

Discharges with no plan, no closure, and no continuity.

Nervous systems flooded with uncertainty.

This isn’t compassionate care.

It’s administrative abandonment dressed up as service improvement.

And everyone can feel it.

Many of us came into this work because we believed in people.

We believed in presence, in relationship, in hope.

We didn’t come to optimise spreadsheets.

We came to walk alongside people while they found their feet.

But now we’re being asked to distance, to detach, to treat connection as if it’s the problem.

And it’s not.

Connection was always the medicine.

There are parts of the system that need to change — we all know that.

But removing the heart of care is not how we do it.

We don’t create safety by removing the humans who bring it.

We don’t save lives by pulling away the very relationships that hold them.

And we definitely don’t build better services by forgetting why we started in the first place.

Here’s what I know:

When the system forgets its soul,

it’s up to us to remind it.

We don’t need to shout.

We just need to tell the truth — clearly, cleanly, and without apology.

Compassion isn’t optional.

It’s the ground we walk on.

It’s the glue that holds everything together.

It’s the point.

And we will not pretend otherwise.