Rising demand, coupled with shrinking resources, has led to a crisis in mental health services. With services threadbare and increasing unmet need, some people have paid the ultimate price.

This stunningly beautiful book is a collection of lived experience accounts, by bereaved relatives, service-users, carers, practitioners, and activists. Each chapter begins with a colour plate of a memorial heart made by the contributors. They Died Waiting speaks into a void and makes a valuable contribution to health and social care knowledge. It shines a light on some whispered lives, whispered deaths, and whispered organisational behaviours.

They Died Waiting will appeal to anyone interested in mental health or bereavement. Within the contributor’s chapters, They Died Waiting exposes insensitive and unsafe practice, the brutal processes that bereaved relatives experience, and the empty ‘lessons learnt’ rhetoric. Nevertheless, the narratives are bursting with integrity, values, compassion, love, and hope.

The editors, Caroline Aldridge (a social worker and author of He Died Waiting) and Emma Corlett (a former mental health nurse), integrate their personal and professional perspectives in a trauma-informed analysis. They introduce novel concepts and invite readers to become active agents for positive change.

Foreword by Siobhan Maclean:

“The theory contained in this book is raw, it’s emotionally challenging and it should be practice changing … These stories, these deaths, must be shouted about.” (Siobhan Maclean, social worker, author, and practice leader).

There are 312 pages (including 29 colour plates. The list price is £24.99.

This book can stand alone. however, it builds on Caroline’s first book, He Died Waiting: Learning the Lessons- a Bereaved Mother’s View of Mental Health Services (2020).

Both books published by Learning Social Worker Publications (Norwich).