Dear me, what a week that was! Peaky Blinders finished unsatisfactorily, that dreadful Strictly thing danced in to herald the start of autumn, a lady with a sparkly spider brooch judged the Prime Minister to be creepily and unlawfully dodgy and our local mental health services took another hit of stinging criticism from inspectors.

So, what were you belly-aching about? Hazarding a guess, I’d suggest it wasn’t the CQC’s depressing view of north Cumbria’s mental healthcare provision... unless you’re one of those needing it, that is.

That’s always the case with the most important things in day-to-day life. Until the day-to-day need for them arrives – and they’re found to be missing – they tend not to be given a second thought. To be fair, the same could be said of most other essential services.

Forever the Cinderella of our NHS monolith, mental health services have never been great. It has to be said they’ve languished in a low position on the delivery priority list for as long as most of us can remember.

But when the Care Quality Commission heaves a sigh and says: “Too little progress”, that’s a depressing worry – considering how many decades we’ve had to make some progress.

And although we’re now told there’s light on the horizon, because local services are going to be shared and/or farmed out to other trusts, it might be tempting to see that patch-up plan as something akin to rearranging deckchairs on a sinking cruise ship.

We’ll all have individual experiences of the National Health Service which, when brought together with an agenda of complaint, would point to a creaky carry-on coming close to terminal sickness. My own encounters have not always been wonderful. I lost both parents to its admitted errors, “missed opportunities” and inefficiencies.

It is though, the best we have. I still believe it’s worth fighting for – especially as we watch the spectre of a US-styled, privately insured model approaching. It’s perhaps the best we will ever have, given a continuing starvation of public funding for front-end care.

But, sad to say, that’s not quite true where joined-up mental healthcare is concerned. “Too little progress” tells its own story. Cinderella doesn’t appear to be getting an outing to the ball any time soon.

I’m no expert on these matters, but it seems to me that trite advice to talk openly about mental health – while doing not much when the listening stops – is counter-productive and bordering on cruel.

Telling those who suffer that it’s OK not to be OK, doesn’t make sense unless we’re comfortable with walking away from the not-OK. And while it’s clearly good to open up about problems and confusing thoughts, doing so on social media for umpteen “likes” and a “Good luck, hun” is hardly the answer. Quite the opposite, in fact. There’s nothing so dangerously antisocial than social media.

It might well be that the sorry state of north Cumbria’s mental health services – as defined by the CQC – went unnoticed in a week of screaming headlines, dramatic events and changing telly schedules. If you or your loved ones aren’t in need of trusted help, you’ll probably not be too bothered that there’s not much of it to spare.

But when mental health carers tell inspectors they are afraid to raise concerns with managers for “fear of retribution” some alarm bells should be ringing somewhere – even when denied by the most senior manager.

Few could argue against an increasing need for better care. This is a complex world; these are worrying times. Ability to cope with unprecedented pressures is not universal. Inability to cope loads spin-off burdens on all other areas of the NHS and its limping social care partners. We see that but seem unwilling or unable to give Cinderella her chance.

Cumbria will, by no means, be the only county to be found wanting in a genuinely holistic approach to health. It was ever thus – all over the country.

Fingers in ears, blindfolded against costly change, we’re all guilty of putting off what is an existing urgency and fast becoming a crisis.

And that’s more than sad. For too many it has already proved to be tragic.