I'm from N. Ireland. The mental health care here is appallingly underfunded (perhaps the worst in the UK?). That being said, what the staff do with what little they have is truly commendable. I am a big advocate of the NHS in N.I. There are some incredible people working here.
That being said, my personal experiences with it have been kind of awful. It's part a stubborn and poor mindset towards help, part lack of being able to relate to the majority of my therapists. I had a particularly bad experience that ultimately turned me on the path away from seeking mental health help and I am eternally grateful for it.
In my mid-20s I had plans to kick the bucket and in my foolishness, I told my college counsellor (I went back to school to finish my A-Levels as a point of pride). She decided to make my life difficult and tried to contact my abusive mother and left a message on mums answering machine. I got to it before she did, fortunately, but to get my counsellor to leave me alone, I eventually relented to admitting myself to the emergency mental health ward via my GP. It's in a town over and hard to get to. I go there, go into my assessment interview and they decide they don't want to admit me. Keep in mind this is like 10pm on a winters night in a pretty rough town. I get kicked out (yes kicked out) and just wandered around the grounds in a daze. It's attached to a public hospital, so walking around in the very open grounds is not illegal. I sat down to have a smoke, deflated, and honestly close to just walking off into the countryside and not coming back. About 2 minutes later some goons from the mental health ward came out to physically remove me from the premises. It was at this point that I realized that no one is going to save me and I can only rely on myself, whatever my path may be. I decided not to kill myself and despite struggling, I'm still around. So, to conclude, as much as I love the NHS (and I do), the best thing they ever personally did for me in relation to my mental health is to not help me.