Now on bbc news lightsjoin now on bbc news lights join Victoria Derbyshire for the best of her show this week. Letsjoin. Hello and welcome. For the next half an hour, we will show you some of the highlights of our Award Winning journalism over the last week. On thursday, we revealed that some people who want to come off antidepressants, which are not addictive, by the way, are being sent to street drug charities for support. That is according to the Mental Health charity mind. It is estimated that at least 16 of adults in england, that is about 7 Million People, take antidepressants. Alex gatenby has this report. Inner restlessness, insomnia. Stabbing pains inside my body. Slurring my words. Waking up on and off all night. Itching all over my body. Brain zaps. No motivation, apathy. These symptoms are common with street drug withdrawal. But some people feel like this when coming off anti depressants. And weve discovered that theyre feeling forced to turn to street drug charities for help. Actually, the process of withdrawing from Something Like a street drug and withdrawing from a medicine is not that dissimilar. On occasions, we might signpost someone to a drug reduction organisation. And some patients feel the same. Theyre prescribing and creating involuntary drug addicts. I am one of these people and i want to find out why its so hard to access the right help. Ive taken three different anti depressa nts over the course of the last ten years. Now ive tried to come off this medication three times before, only once successfully, and im currently withdrawing again. But like six out of every ten patients, i feel i wasnt warned about the risks of withdrawal by my doctor. Ive also found the withdrawal symptoms shockingly debilitating. And conflicting advice by medical practitioners about how to withdraw really confusing. Prescriptions for anti depressa nts in the uk have doubled in the past decade. Although theyre not addictive, they can lead to dependency issues. And of the seven Million People taking these drugs in england, four million are at risk of withdrawal symptoms if they try and come off the pills. And this programme has learnt that some patients are now approaching local drug dependency charities for support. On occasions, we might signpost someone to a drug reduction organisation, and although there might be initially a little bit of resistance to that thought, probably some sense of stigma or worry about going there, actually, the process of withdrawing from Something Like a street drug and withdrawing from a medicine is not that dissimilar. The first time i tried to come off this medication, my doctor told me i could reduce by 20 every five days and i actually became so ill, thats when i called you at mind and was told that on my dosage it should have taken me anything from 12 to 18 months. How common is it for mind to hear about those kind of experiences . That must have been a really difficult process for you to go through. Mind hears from tens of thousands of people each year. I think its not really well understood how long and how difficult a process coming off anti depressants can be. For example, if youve been prescribed and been on a medicine for about six months, we might think that itll take you another six months to successfully reduce and come off that medicine. And why do you think there is such a lack of knowledge about anti depressa nt withdrawal within Front Line Services . Certainly the guidelines to doctors dont always necessarily talk in full detail about some of the difficulties that people will go through, and they certainly dont talk about the length of time it might take to do it successfully and safely. Although many people do not struggle with anti depressa nt withdrawal, Research Shows thatjust over half of patients who stop or reduce these drugs experience significant withdrawal symptoms. Health bodies only officially recognised that anti depressa nt withdrawals can be severe last year, so theres no universal withdrawal advice. But the current nice guidelines from 2009 say to gradually reduce the dose, normally over a four week period, although some people may require longer. And many practitioners advise taking the medication every other day. But this can cause more withdrawal problems. So to cut down my medication in increments, i have to pull apart my capsule and take out the beads inside, physically count them and then return the capsule back together. When i used to have a tablet form, if i mis cut the tablet by too small an increment, then i would get really intense brain zaps, which is a common withdrawal symptom that people complain of, which feels like an electric shock to the brain, much like a kind of very intense head rush. And when im going through withdrawal, ill get these every few minutes and its really disorientating. But on any given night, theres seven, usually about seven people. One such drug dependency charity patients are resorting to is change grow live. Melanie davis runs a benzodiazepine withdrawal group in camden, but her funding means she cant help people purely struggling with anti depressa nt withdrawal. Im getting a couple of calls a week, on average, with people who are struggling to come off anti depressants, which we dont principally deal with, so it can be difficult because i really want to support that caller, but i dont have anywhere to send them. So there is a lack of support. Im not aware of anywhere that specialises in that particular group of drugs. Its really shocking for me that people are having to resort to street drug charities for help and even there, they cant access the support that they need. One place that people do come together is online and these communities have thousands of members. One of those is stuart from worcester, who visited a local drug dependency charity when he felt that peer support wasnt enough. I made a self referral to the local substance misuse charity, to see if they worked with people having difficulties with prescribed medication, but then i was told that its only for people that were abusing the medication which i wasnt. So there was no service available. I felt pretty abandoned, actually. Stuart has taken various anti depressants since 1996 and has attempted to come off his most recent medication three times. The withdrawals are far worse than the original depression. For me and so many other people, its really an acute need and those needs arent being met by services. Its left to people to do it themselves. So ive been taking the medication for 17 years. 0k. And i was taken off whilst i was an inpatient overnight. Frustrated at the lack of support available, stuart started his own group and he invited me along to meet some members. Its the best thing thats happened to me in years, honestly. Just the fact that youre with people who have been through the same and youre not sort of. Her with Mental Health problems. That feeling of not being alone. Yeah, youve got people to talk to. Nearly half of uk users of anti depressants have been on them for more than two years. And Research Shows that the longer youre on this medication, the harder it is to come off. A new nice guideline on the safe prescribing and withdrawal management of prescribed drugs, including anti depressants, is due for publication in 2021. But without this advice at the moment, the reality is many people tapering are essentially self medicating. So what is the safest way to come off anti depressants . Dr Mark Horowitz is an expert on this subject. So its important for patients to reduce their dose slowly and go down to very low doses because the effect of very small doses of medication is actually quite significant on the brain. Why is there such little knowledge about the severity of anti depressa nt withdrawals for some patients . For the last 15 years in the nice guidelines, it said that anti depressant withdrawal symptoms are brief and self limiting over about a week or two. And so when patients present with severe or long lasting symptoms, gps and psychiatrists understandably think that it cant be withdrawal symptoms. And instead they conclude its probably a relapse of peoples underlying illness, depression or anxiety. It seems that the severity of withdrawals for some patients is slowly starting to be recognised, but that is in large part thanks to the community of sufferers like stuart, ruth and sue, whove been shouting about their experiences for so long and have had to find out how to withdraw successfully and safely on their own. Although theyre not addictive, what we now know about the dependency problems that come with anti depressant withdrawals needs first and foremost to be passed on to gps to be put into practice in Front Line Services. Whenever we talk to gps about it, they want to help people. I dont think its the case that, you know, they want to deny people the ability to come off drugs. Theyre crying out for more training and we really want to see that happen. If you are affected by any of the issues raised in that film, contact our action line, bbc. Co. Uk actionline. Lisa nandy wants to become leader of the labour party and your next prime minister. Unlike her rivals, rebecca long bailey and keir starmer, she is not part ofJeremy Corbyns top team and she received the fewest nominations from fellow mps, constituency parties and trade unions, but it is labours members and registered supporters who will choose the partys next leader in the coming weeks. I spoke to her on tuesday. I wonder if you agree that it feels like, in this contest, you cannot win the labour leadership contest if you criticise Jeremy Corbyn . But perhaps you cant win a subsequent general election unless you criticiseJeremy Corbyn . I just think weve got to be honest, thats what ive done since the moment i said i was standing for this leadership contest and its what ive done over the last few years. Its why i was honest about saying we are about to see our labour base collapse across the country in seats that had returned labour mps for 100 years, but ive been honest, too, about what weve got right and what weve got wrong in the last four years. And ive never shied away from speaking up about that because on issues like anti semitism, that is really, really important. Labour, as Harold Wilson once famously said, is a moral crusade or it is nothing at all and weve got to have an honest assessment of what weve got wrong in order that we set it right. Can i ask you about loyalty, then . Or maybe its disloyalty . SomeJeremy Corbyn supporters dont want you to win this contest because as they see it, you were disloyal to him, you resigned from his shadow cabinet and co chaired owen smiths failed leadership bid. How disloyal were you . I think i was the opposite, i think i was deeply loyal to the labour party and labour values. But the converse of that is being disloyal to the leader . We shouldnt have been in a situation where you could either be loyal to labour values or you could be loyal to the leadership of the labour party. You are acknowledging you were disloyal toJeremy Corbyn . No, i wasnt, i went to see him when the resignations happened in 2016 and i said to him, we have to sort this out, but in order to sort this out some of the backbenches may be continuing to fight a factional war, but your office cant continue to do that otherwise you will smash the party to pieces. You hadnt even given him the opportunity to fight a general election. With respect, i served in his shadow cabinet for a year at that point. Id been out every single week defending the party, defending jeremy in really tough weeks. We had reshuffles that were going on for several weeks, where i was being brought out, sent out by the party in order to defend the actions of the Labour Government, the labour party. What point are you making . The only time that i actually spoke out publicly and said that we were getting it wrong was when we had a very high profile incident of anti semitism and the leadership of the party refused to act on it. I went out for a year and fought to hold the Party Together with both hands. Through the Referendum Campaign as well. And it did not work. Were you doing that when you werent really believing it . No, i believed in it. I mean, i believe in the labour party and i believe in strong, unified, broad teams. You say you were genuinely. And that is what i was trying to hold together and. You say you were genuinely. Unfortunately it failed because there was a war being prosecuted by both sides of the labour party. I dont ever want us to be in that position again and the reason its important to say that is because let me read a quote back to you. You describe yourself as genuinely non factional when actually you had a leading role in a coup against the leader . No, ididnt. Several months after hed won a mandate from the membership. Let me correct you because i absolutely did not. I said tojeremy we ought to sort this out, i will help you to sort this out as ive been doing for a year. I was very keen to do it. And then . And then it was made clear to me and other people, john healey, kate green, who were sitting in that room, that the factional war from the Leaders Office would continue as well. This has been going on. Sorry. Who said that to you . Jeremy corbyn . No, senior members in his top team. Any of the other leadership candidates in this contest . No. I mean, at the time. Well, why dont you name them . Keir had resigned from the front bench already, i think. Becky was a junior minister in one of the other teams. Tell us who it was, then. Well, because we had those conversations behind closed doors, and i dont think theyve ever spoken about it and neither have i, about naming names, about conversations that happened in private. Id asked to seejeremy to have that meeting in order that we sorted it out. And he wouldnt see you . No, he did see me. Id asked to see him on a confidential basis in order to do that. Did you tell him, im going to leave this office, resign and run the owen Smith Campaign . I told him there was no future for the labour party if he was determined to lead us into another factional war and the reason. What did he say to that . He didnt say anything. What, he was silent . I think he was genuinely quite upset about it and so was i. I did not resign from the front bench lightly, it was an important thing we were trying to do. But it matters that we acknowledge where weve been in order that we set this right because for far too long, what ive seen in ten years in parliament and the labour party, is that one faction wins and then the other groups in the party are excluded. And actually, every great Labour Government has always known that broad strong teams are the only way we win. Many might agree with that assessment, but they wonder how you are the person to bring all the factions together, with that history of the last few years . I suppose, in all honesty, because im still on good terms with all of the people involved in different sides of the dispute, because im genuinely non factional, because ive always worked with people across the party, and because. Jeremy corbyns supporters dont trust you. Ive always stood up for the right to be heard. Actually, i dont think thats true. In this contest, a lot of the people who have been talking to me at hustings saying they are supporting me are people who joined forJeremy Corbyn because they were so inspired by what they heard. My politics and Jeremy Corbyns are not hugely dissimilar. I spent ten years fighting for the rights of refugees before i came into parliament, trying to shut down yarls wood and end immigration detention of children. I first metjeremy when i was marching against the iraq war, and working for an mp who was opposed to the iraq war, so on all sorts of issues we are fairly similar, and actually, that is what labour has got to get back to, where we can have open and honest debates with one another and make sure we get it right and pull together in the interests of the party. On the subject of open and honest debate, then, can i ask you about Trevor Phillips . Yes. Suspended from the labour party pending an investigation because of comments hes made about islam and muslim people. Is that suspension the right decision . I dont know, is the honest answer. I havent seen the allegations against him, i dont even know who made them. Let me ask you this. In 2016, he said muslims see the world differently from the rest of us and are resistant to the traditional process of integration. Is that islamophobic . I remember that very well and i remember feeling. Is it islamophobic . What i dislike about it, its not for me to pronounce whether its islamophobic or not. Why not . You want to be the labour leader. Because the labour leader should not be making decisions about individual cases. If i read you a comment that was. That is why this is so controversial. If i read you a comment that was against black people, you would say immediately, im guessing, yes, thats racist. It depends what it was. And actually that comment, why i think that comment is problematic. Ok, well, let me say this, then. Lets say the sentence was black people see the world differently from the rest of us. You would say to me that was racist. Can i tell you why i think this sentence is problematic and why i thought so at the time and why i was deeply uncomfortable about it . On the one hand, Trevor Phillips was arguing at the time that muslim people, people who are muslim are not a race and therefore cant experience racism and on the other hand hes saying they are fundamentally different from other people and stereotyping them as one Homogenous Group. Those two things are not only incompatible but it seems to me that is not a good place to have gotten into, where youre stereotyping one group of people in a particular way. Ive had those conversations before with many people. I dont understand why you are reluctant to say that is potentially islamophobic. Well, because you are asking me to pronounce on an individual case in the labour party and the reason. Im asking you what your opinion is of that sentence. Swap it from muslims to jews. If anybody said. I dont like it. I dont like that statement. I dont think its helpful. I think it unfairly characterises muslims as one Homogenous Group with one set of beliefs and one method of behaviour and actually that is really unhelpful. There was a report that the all Party Parliamentary group did into islamophobia which highlighted precisely statements like this as unfairly characterising muslims as one particular group and actually, within islam, there is a very real and live debate about islamophobia, about some of the issues that Trevor Phillips was raising. Let me tell you the Muslim Council of britain say, mr phillips has made incendiary statements about muslims that would be unacceptable for any other minority. That is why this complaint deserves to be heard. And it deserves to be taken seriously. So its not orwellian, as former labour mp now crossbencher in the lords lord mann says . Weve got to take seriously complaints about islamophobia just as we take seriously complaints about anti semitism or any other form of racism, but what weve also got to do is take them out of the hands of the leadership of the labour party and that is why, as somebody who may be leader of this party in three and a half weeks, i am not prepared to bejudge and jury on individual cases. That is how we lost the trust of the public. Its not how we are going to restore it. Now you may have heard of a menstrual cup. It is this plastic moulded cup. Some women use them during their periods. You literally put it inside you and it catches the blood. Sales of these devices have almost doubled in the last year, but now expert physiotherapists have told this programme that the advise from some menstrual cup manufacturers is incorrect and could cause damage to womens pelvic floors if they are not used properly. Our reporter anna adams has this. Theyve been around for decades, but its only in the last few years that Menstrual Cups have really started to take off here in the uk. More than 7 of women who have periods now use them. They can last for ten years and theyre much greener and cheaper than traditional products. And thats exactly why jenny wanted to use one. She said everyone was recommending them. Lots of your friends were using these . Yeah. And what were they saying about them . They were raving about it. Even a male friend whose partner was using it at the time said, why arent you on one of these . This is right up your street. Its green. You love green things. Well, id never heard of one. So thats when i thought, well, everybody is telling me to do it. Jenny used the cup for three months before she realised something wasnt quite right. I felt something sort of hanging that shouldnt have been there. And i didnt know what it was. What did it feel like . I mean, in terms of something that i could equate it to, it felt like i had a tongue hanging down if that sounds too graphic, i dont know. It was just like there was something that isnt normally in there hanging out. So, yeah, i thought id go and see the gp and just double check. I thought there might have been some kind of a lump there or Something Like that. It was something physically there that shouldnt have been there and hadnt been there before. And thats what she said it was a minor prolapse. Well, prolapse is incredibly common. The Royal College of gynaecologists and obstetricians say it affects 40 of women over the age of a0. And it occurs when the pelvic organs, the bowels, the bladder and the womb, descend into the vagina. But in mild cases, it can be treated with physiotherapy. You fold down like that. You reduce the size and you feed it in. The chartered society of physiotherapists says some instructions arent clear enough, and theyre calling for Menstrual Cups to be better regulated. Probably women whove not had children have gone from tampons to cups. Its a very different mechanism to put in and take out the cup, as it is to the tampon. Kate lough, who has spent more than 20 years treating womens pelvic floors, says problems could occur when the cup is being incorrectly removed. Knitted vagina. Find a way that suits you to fold the cup and put it in. In it goes, up like a pop up tent and its sitting with a suction effect in there, collecting the blood from your period, 0k . You have to think, how do i get this cup out . If you just pull on the end, its heavily suctioned in and youre going to drag down. And thats not what you need to do. So squeeze the bottom to release the suction effect through the little holes at the top, or put your finger right into your vagina and release the suction at the rim at the top. She says some of the instructions could actually be harmful. I think, having looked at some of the information on some of the cups, particularly information about taking the cup out, is not correct and is hard to understand. So using your pelvic floor muscles to bring the cup lower in the vagina is not correct. If you tighten your pelvic floor muscles, the cup will go up. Bearing down to push the cup within reach of your fingers is not good pelvic floor advice. Within a week, every month, youre actually bearing down quite heavily. And thats not great, because then you stretch your pelvic floor muscles and it counters the advice that women would be given to avoid prolapse. Well, lots of women are able to use Menstrual Cups without any bad side effects whatsoever. But in the uk, the cups are not classified as medical devices, which means theyre completely unregulated, which is why some manufacturers have conflicting advice. Maria is a0. Shes had two children, but hadnt had any problems with prolapse before she started using a menstrual cup. Its a big thing. Its not like a tampon. It is much bigger than i thought it would be once you open the box. It was a bit uncomfortable for me at first. To take it out, you have to do it very slowly and you can feel it sucking you. When she removed the cup, she felt like something was still inside her. I felt a bit of discomfort and i thought, hold on a minute, havent i taken it out, or is this still in . So i go to the bathroom, i check and itjust felt like a big lump. And it felt like my body was coming out and i said, a ha youre at a certain age, youve had children and youve heard of vaginal prolapse. And i said, is this whats happening to me . And then i managed to get an appointment the following week. And the gynaecologist did say to me, mm, you do have a slight vaginal prolapse, but nothing to be scared of. It probably happened because of the cup. She advised not to use it any more, because of what had happened to me. The women we spoke to said they should have had more information about Menstrual Cups and prolapse. There was no warning to say this might have happened, and i had really thoroughly read the instructions. I thought i was doing everything properly. And it didnt say this was a possible side effect. As it can happen, and it did happen to me and other people, it should be mentioned, for sure. Thats it for this week. You can contact the programme, any time, on twitter vicderbyshire, and you can e mail victoria bbc. Co. Uk. We are back live, monday morning at 10 00am, on bbc two, the bbc news channel and online. Thanks for watching. Hello, it will be turning colder tonight, probably the coldest night of the next few. We have seen cooler aircoming of the next few. We have seen cooler air coming across the uk and a few fronts on the scene, this one bringing some outbreaks of rain in the south east of england. Behind it, the cooler air has followed as we change wind direction from a south westerly two north westerly. Many have seen the cloud sinning and breaking but we will get some clearer skies overnight. We lose the rain in the south east of england, the showers following behind to become fewer, largely dry but probably some cloud moving from scotla nd probably some cloud moving from scotland into northern and Eastern England and that should keep temperatures above freezing. Elsewhere, clear skies and light winds meet a frost with lowest temperatures in scotland. For many, tomorrow starts sunny, cloud breaking in northern and Eastern England but increasing through the day in scotland and Northern Ireland as the wind picks up. In the afternoon some rain moves in but it is still dry for england and wales with quite a bit of sunshine and after the cold start, temperatures as high as 13 degrees. The front bringing the rain in the north west on monday will hang around over the next few days and get so far then stopped and then the rain comes back in. This is tuesday with that wheat weather front bringing more cloud into england and wales, maybe a little rain and drizzle week weather front. Then little rain and drizzle week weatherfront. Then returning as thicker cloud and steady rain in Northern Ireland and western scotland. In Eastern England, it might be dry for most of the day and because we have more of a south westerly wind, temperatures could be higher at 1a or 15 degrees with milder air to the south of that and colder to the north put out the front will bring some rain overnight on tuesday into wednesday morning to put the heaviest overnight because added moose southwards, it becomes light and patchy, mainly over the hills but more cloud around. Colder aircoming into the hills but more cloud around. Colder air coming into the northern half of the uk with wintry showers in northern scotland but ahead of that front, although there was more cloud in the south east, temperatures might reach 15 or 16 degrees. Bubbly only briefly put up the week ahead is all about this rain arriving in the north west and a staggering southwards, ahead of some mild weather in the middle of the week and then later on, it gets colder again everywhere. This is bbc news. Im shaun ley. The headlines at 4 1a more patients who had tested positive for coronavirus in the uk have died, bringing the number of deaths in the country to 35. The Health Secretary warns that at some point in the coming weeks older people and those with Health Conditions will be asked to stay at home to protect them. The protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that. British companies are urged to join a National Effort to produce more ventilators and other medical equipment at speed. Supermarkets urge shoppers not to buy more than they need,