Hello again!! Here is the Lewisham BAME Mental Health Carer forum update for November. This is usually the last forum I run out of all the 4 forums per month. The forum is quite unique as the other forums promote mental health carer inclusion and awareness in the other London Boroughs, but this one focuses on Black Asian Minority Ethnic queries. BAME carers and service users suffer a whole different set of issues in regards to mental health services. Most are complex, cultural and historic, but there MUST be some platform for important parties to discuss, network and work on these issues.
Another thing different between this forum and the 3 others is sometimes this forum is a mix of patients and unpaid carers. I often try and leave space for the Service user Rep or chair to update the forum.
Who Attended and spoke
For the November update we had a discussion from Pharmacist Della Bishara in regards to medication and its affects on the patient and how unpaid carers could and should be involved.
We also had a detailed presentation from Rachel Ellis who is from Table Talk, which is a new initiative that aims to help inform senior residents throughout the borough, with the help of volunteers. Table Talk provides leaflets, information and a table in order to engage with the older population.
We were also joined by a number of unpaid carers and patients, along with a representative from Lewisham Homes, plus Metro’s Representative who provide one-to-one counselling for people who identify as LGBTQ and/or those experiencing issues relating to diversity, equality and identity. We were also joined by Lewisham CCG Engagement Teresa and also Natasha from Greenwich Carers who I approached to set up some carer groups. We were also joined by the rep from Community wellbeing from BLG-Mind who I will also bet setting up a peer support group.
On Medication
We had a very lengthy discussion on medication with Della. Many questions from the attendees she took away to raise at SLaM especially in regards to clinical trials and reporting on side affects. Carers need to be involved because of the patient might not always be able to advocate for their need, especially if dementia takes hold. I raised with Della if there were studies looking at medication effects on BAME groups and if there is a SLaM trust wide forum that engages pharmacist issues.
It was mentioned that Lewisham Integrated Medicines Optimisation Service (LIMOS) is working in improving medication safety for older people. Basically LIMOS is integrated across the hospital, local care homes and community settings, which means that, if a care home resident is admitted to hospital, or vice versa, there is a seamless approach to managing medication.
As with the psychiatrists bible being the DSM, the pharmacists have an important book, that being the British National Formulary (BNF), the book is not easy to get hold of and is the UKs pharmaceutical reference book that contains a wide spectrum of information and advice on prescribing and pharmacology, along with specific facts and details about many medicines available.
Della discussed the BNF in detail and how it can help pharmacists, which the forum played close attention to. The forum also discussed the issue of miscommunication of medication between hospitals, covert medication and the issue of control & release medication.
Table Talk presentation
After the discussion with the pharmacist, we moved on to another topic regading older ages people. This was the Table Talk project, which was presented by Rachel Ellis. Rachel has been an outstanding promoter of senior citizen’s causes throughout the borough of Lewisham and has visited a large number different venus in Lewisham this year alone. As mentioned before Table Talk engage with the public on raising awareness of activities, information and support for senior citizens. This is specially important due to the population is ageing as we all are living longer.
Table Talk work closely with Lewisham council and with Age UK. The Lewisham BAME MH carer forum were shown several leaflets, which can help older people in regards to meter readings, warm homes, fire alarm checks and transport. We discussed how isolated older people can be in the community as Rachel described more information and leaflets.
Carer led Support Groups
Lastly for the Lewisham BAME MH Carers forum. I discussed the importance of carer-led peer support groups. I will be setting up several carer support groups in a few boroughs. Usually the forums are strategic and engagement focused and there is not enough time to hear carer stories. In fact carer support groups are meant to feed into the carer forums for empowerment purposes, but there were only a few carer support groups in the borough and none carer-led, which means there is not much motivation for carers to connect with each other.
I will be setting a BAME and a general MH carer peer support group with the help of Greenwich carers for that borough and I was so glad Greenwich carers engagement and community officer (Natasha) came along and support me at the Lewisham BAME forum.
This will be the same for Lewisham as we will work closely with the CCGs. The forum talked about how they felt about the Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich Mind peer support group event that was held on wednesday the 27th over at York Hall in Beckhenham. We are very glad that they are able to fund that startups of the groups, however I pressed that we do not really need the funding, it will be the passion, drive and connection that can help, not to say funding will not be helpful.
With Lewisham CCG engagement, the forum has been aware of NHS England’s long term plan and we have made it clear they need to involve patients and carers in that plan. The good news is that the NHS England’s long term plan is beginning to take shape and involve us, but no matter what I do, I want to connect with carers and make them aware that the health system is trying hard to involve them. I am not sure about the social care element, but at least with NHS England, there looks to be some very good and exciting projects coming our way.
BAME Carer experiences Research
As promised I promoted a trainee psychologist’s study into African Caribbean experiences of supporting an individual with MH needs in a forensic setting. She contacted me after reading my blogs to see other researchers were engaging with forums about their own research. The researcher feels there is not enough literature or research papers detailing such experiences and Lewisham CCG will follow this up with the trainee Psychologist studying at the University of East London.
As usual I thank Kelvin (one of the proactive members) for setting up the talk with the pharmacist. I also thanks Community wellbeing and BLG Mind for hosting the Lewisham BAME forum and thank Greenwich Carers for the support they have given me and look forward to exciting projects ahead. I would lastly like to thank Lewisham CCG engagement officer (Teressa) and the other CCGs for engaging with the Carer forums and I am very impressed with the plans they are looking to involve us in.
This concludes the update for November and I will be preparing for the groups with the support of Oxleas and Greenwich carers.
A Caring Mind 