Author Archives: mmckenz11

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About mmckenz11

IT Officer for London School of Osteopathy and a Carer representative for Maudsley. As you can see, I have many interests shown off my blog. I hope to keep it updated with posts and more things to come soon.

Southwark MH Carers forum October 2019

untitled-2Welcome back for the October update of the Southwark Mental Health Carers forum. Just so those to the blog understand. The term mental health carer does not mean the mental health of carers, it is a term to describe an unpaid carer supporting someone close who has mental health needs.

I would like to kindly thank Southwark CCG and Southwark Healthwatch in helping to advertise and publicise the carers forum.

The Southwark MH carers forum aims to allow unpaid carers to have a chance to understand and forum a relationship with mental health services in the borough of Southwark, we do not stop there. It is a right for unpaid carers to query health services and voice their opinions. Most members seek to understand why the social care and health services are the way they are. It does not help that the NHS changes rapidly and can be complex to adapt to local needs.

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The Southwark Mental Health carers forum had engagement from Kings NHS mental health strategy lead Gavin Smith to explain his mental health strategy. We also had Rebecca Martland from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience attend to talk about her new study, plus we were hoping Zenette Abrahams could update us on Southwark Council’s carers strategy.

Before we continued on with the forum which runs from Southwark Carers. I noticed there was a lot of pictures and items on show. I had just caught the Southwark Carers Black History month exhibition and celebration, which was put on by one of the Southwark Carers Trustee. I spoke to her about the importance of Black history, which takes place in the month of October.

Just so you know Southwark Carers provides several services, one being the enabling service, which encompasses active listening, advocacy, signposting and support in tackling stressful issues outside of the caring role. The other being empowering carers with information and knowledge about their rights.

There were lots of photos on display regarding heros of black history and what it was like to live in those times. The CEO of Southwark Carers kindly showed me one of the costume cut outs.

 

We had a good turn out at the carers forum as I explained the agenda and unfortunately Gavin could not stay, but would be back again in future. I explained to the members of the forum as to why it was important to have a platform for carers to at least be interested on what their borough was doing for them. It should be a right for carers to come together and share what is working for them and what is not working.

The forum still needs to grow further so I have some work to do. I spoke on the updates provided by Southwark council in regards to the Carers Pathways Project Board. The Carers Pathways Project Board was established at the end of July, and work being undertaken around the carers pathway. I was given a contact to at least find out how the board was getting along. It is important carers be updated on what will be provided for them, rather than systems being designed where there is little or no carer input. It does not matter if it is bad news, but carers should know about it.

Next we had Rebecca talk about her project regarding improving physical health of patients on the inpatient wards. Basically they are starting a feasibility to see whether High intensity interval training (HIIT) might be acceptable and helpful for inpatients with Serious mental illness.

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Eligible patients who consent to take part would be randomly allocated to HIIT or to Treatment as usual. The HIIT involves alternating short bursts of high intensity exercise (1 minute intervals) with recovery periods of light exercise (90 second intervals) (Each session will take 11 minutes overall + warm-up and cool-down) and will take place in the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals on a stationary bike – People will be asked to attend for up to 12 weeks, even after their discharge, but they’ll start as inpatients.

The group discussed how important exercise is for those suffering mental ill health and felt physical health support was not focused on enough. Some members signed up to be part of Rebecca’s focus group.

I then updated members on the following being Guys & St Thomas carer’s policy and it means for both Kings NHS trust and Guys and St thomas NHS Trust.

I then updated the members about the Carers UK conference and what I spoke about at the conference, then I spoke about my visit to South West London & St George inpatient ward to speak to staff about carer involvement. I then spoke about the Lewisham CCG Mental Health stakeholder event with some members querying if Southwark CCG are doing something like that.

I then updated members regarding the carers support group and also that there will be a joint Southwark and Lambeth MH carers forum next month where MP Helen Hayes will be attending.

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MP Helen Hayes

We then heard updates from members who attended the SLaM NHS Southwark Advisory group, where plans to redevelop a ward were shown, plus a few other updates. Some members also registered to be on Southwark’s carers members list.

For Black History month I will be speaking at St Andrews healthcare on a carers view of BAME inclusion in the NHS and will probably write a blog before then.

Overall the Southwark MH Carers forum was empowering and there is plenty of work to do to raise carer focus, awareness and empowerment in the borough of Southwark.

Lewisham Mental health Stakeholder event 2019

imageWelcome to another blog from South London unpaid carer Matthew Mckenzie. On this particular blog, I am covering how the Lewisham Mental Health Stakeholder event went. Health Commissioner stakeholder events usually run once a year, these events are usually borough wide and incorporate the community regarding health interests.

The theme of the Lewisham CCG Mental Health Stakeholder event was on “Me and my community”. The theme was to help bring the community together to discuss, plan and celebrate how Lewisham as a whole are working towards the mental health and well-being of its community.

The event took place over at Lewisham Town Hall – Civic Suite from 9:30 am till 4:30 pm. If I remember correctly, the event takes ages to plan and I believe such a stakeholder event was not run in 2018. So the event was great received, due to many mental health service updates and changes in the community.

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The stakeholder event had many stalls from providers, workshops, sessions and talks and presentations. Those involved in the event were of course Lewisham CCG, Lewisham council, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (who provide MH services in the area), Lewisham Healthwatch, Bromley, Lewisham & Greenwich Mind, Compass (services for children), Lewisham Carers, Department for work & Pensions, Sydenham Gardens, GCDA, Lewisham college, Lewisham & Greenwich hospital trust and more.

To open the event, we had the welcome from Councilor James Rathbone, who is currently Lewisham’s Mental health Champion. Next was the Lewisham Mental Health Alliance with updates provided by Donna Hayward-Sussex – who is SLaM’s Service director and also Dr Charles Gosling who is the CCG’s senior clinical director.

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Since the event was themed for Black history month, plus the London borough of Lewisham being a diverse community, we have an update on health inequalities in the borough from Dr Catherine Mbema who is the Director of Public Health in Lewisham.

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Next up was CEO of Your Voice in Health and Social Care who have partnered with Carers Lewisham. Tim Spilsbury spoke about the difficulties unpaid carers face in the borough of Lewisham and how the charity is seeking to tackle those issues. To my surprise he spoke about the Triangle of Care, which is a policy aimed at buildng a working collaboration between the service user, professional and carer.

One thing critical about stakeholder events is giving the community a chance to ask questions or bring out statements, so I was glad to see a panel session consisting of those who spoke previously including the Joint commissioner of Adult Mental Health and Head of services for BLG-Mind. We certainly had some hard hitting challenging questions from the audience, although I felt some great work has been done by the services so it was a shame no one mentioned anything about that.

Next up after the 20 minute break and some networking were the Workshops. The aim of the workshops was to either educate the community on mental wellbeing, provide updates on services, a way to promote services and allow for stakeholders to connect with the community.

Prevention – This workshop looked at Social Prescribing (connecting people in their community)

5-ways to Wellbeing – This workshop taught by Lewisham Healthwatch looked into those who work with children and young people.

What is the Relationship between Mental Health and Internalised Racism? – This workshop taught by Hillna Fontaine, explored the complex issues of race and mental health.

Carers Workshop – This workshop co-produced by some of my members of the Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum and Carers Lewisham and myself.

Mental Health Equalities – What we know, our ideas and your suggestions – This workshop facilitated by SLaM equality team looked into what the Trust is doing to improve the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) service users, carers and staff.

Social Inclusion Recover Services; Paths to Recovery at Sydenham Garden – On this workshop, we could find out more about Sydenham Garden’s work – helping people in their recovery from mental and physical ill-health in Lewisham.

Mental Health in Schools: Challenges and solutions – This workshop aims to explore mental and emotional health challenges faced in school environment.

Healthy Walk – An excellent workshop, were attendees found out about the greenspace, gentle exercise and good company are great for physical and mental wellbeing and were actually walking outside.

The Lewisham Wellbeing Map: showing the great places for health in our borough – This workshop looked into a social prescribing map for link workers, navigators, and signposters.

Help in a mental health crisis – A workshop taught by the manager of the Ladywell Unit looking at where you can access help in a crisis and what you can expect from services Alternatives to going to A&E

DWP – Forest Hill and Bromley Jobcentre – The Partnership Team and the Disability Employment Advisers provided people with an insight to what is available to support those with Disability and Mental Health under Universal Credit and Employment Support Allowance

Wellbeing Education at SLaM Recovery College – Lastly we Trainers from SLaM Recovery College will discuss how the college operates, the benefits of attending for SLaM service users, carers/supporters and staff members.

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A quick mention on the carers workshop I co-produced with members of the Lewisham MH carers forum, we looked at ways to involve unpaid mental health carers in the community as carers like myself can be isolated, lacking support and driven to desperation when supporting someone with mental ill health.

I cannot thank Lewisham CCG enough and also Carers Lewisham and YVIHSC for helping and attending.

All in all, I thought the event went very well with special thanks to Karin Barthel who is the senior CCG comissioner for involving myself and carers lewisham to run the workshop in co-production.

I hope other CCGs will continue to run stakeholder events, or I am wondering how do they engage with their communities when it comes to mental health and wellbeing.

Thanks for stopping by.

Being part of something

106542Hey there! Welcome to another new blog from unpaid carer Matthew Mckenzie. I have just come back from the Carers UK Conference 2019. As a carer I was inspired on how the event went and felt part of something. I felt part something very big and felt I should write up a couple of my thoughts on this post.

I had shared a panel session at the Carers UK conference and due to limited time, I could not manage to say all what I would have liked, however I felt I got the main messages out there to the audience. I wish this particular blog post carries on my message to other unpaid carers who stumble across this blog post.

This message is to you…fellow carer.

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Lewisham MH Carers forum September 2019 update

133Welcome to the September update of the Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum. I guess you might already know, that I facilitate two carer strategy forums in the borough of Lewisham.

 

 

However one of the forums focuses more on BAME queries/issues with families and unpaid carers. The one that runs at Lewisham Carers tends to focus on unpaid MH carers as a whole.

Mental Health Open Forum

Just as a reminder, the term ‘mental health carers’ refers to unpaid carers supporting those with mental health needs. I know not many people are happy with labels, but on some level it just helps with identification and at best helps to lessen isolation as people know they have something in common with each other.

For the September Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum, we were lucky to have Lewisham’s latest mental health Champion James Rathbone, who is also the Labour Councillor for Lee Green. As unpaid MH carers, we were also joined by South London & Maudsley’s Quality Improvement QI Facilitator. It is important NHS mental health trusts engage with families and carers at grassroots level.

We first heard from Cllr James Rathbone who has lived experience of mental health. He spoke about how he became a mental health champion and why he would like to make a difference in the community regarding mental health needs. Not every service user can speak out when addressing mental health issues and it helps when someone is high profile enough to raise mental health at important meetings.

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James specified he does not control how Lewisham health services run, but he will bring mental health to attention when the issue arises. It is important that a mental health champion gets out and engages with the community. It is important to hear what the community says about the issue of mental health needs. James raised the situation of mental health needs from the BAME community and felt there needs to be more priority due to a high level of BAME using mental health services.

James was critical with the term ‘parity of esteem’, because he felt the term itself does nothing to address the real issues. He felt the main issue was funding and the new term should be ‘parity of funding’. He felt what are services bringing to the table? It is easy to talk, but funding matters in the end, plus how the funding is used.

James talked about the big launch of the Lewisham suicide prevention strategy held on the 11th of September 2019. I am not fully aware of the suicide stats in Lewisham or other London boroughs, so it would be interesting to chase that up. Especially since I am a carer member of SLaM’s suicide prevention group.

The next and last point raise by Lewisham’s Mental Health Champion was on how Families and carers can be involved in shaping Lewisham’s mental health services. I asked this query, because families and carers should feel part of the system, they should have their views and experiences taken into account and feel empowered they have the chance to be involved.

James spoke of how carers can become members of their NHS trust and have a greater say on what is going on. James spoke that we should pay attention to what SLaM governors are doing and try query what they are involved in. James mentioned that Lewisham CCG have their public reference group, which allows for involvement and it helps to understand the important health policies affecting the community.

We were glad James mentioned the important Lewisham stakeholder event on the 14th of October, since members of the MH Carers forum will be holding a workshop there about carers.  The link has been added below.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lewisham-mental-health-stakeholder-event-me-and-my-community-tickets-72248203321

On the 16th of October will be Lewisham Child & Adolescent event, although not sure where it will be.

Some questions from the forum asked at James were on the merger of the six CCGs, the use of the Joint Health and Safety Committee and James returning for the Lewisham BAME forum.

Next up was Aaron Brewer who is SLaM’s quality improvement facilitor. Many NHS trusts around the country have quality improvement projects to work out how to improve services for patient and carer (yes, thats right! carers also use services). They want to ensure that the people that access our services experience the same standards of care no matter which borough they live in or which service they com are under.

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Aaron spoke about SLaM’s Inpatient Care Process Model. The model is broken down in to six phases of an admission. Lewisham are currently implementing three phases. The decision made to admit and first 24 hours, First 24 to 72 hours in
hospital and Final discharge preparation and discharge.

The model is broken down in the following sections.

– Decision made to admit and first 24 hours
– First 24 to 72 hours in hospital
– Getting better
– Getting ready to leave
– Final discharge preparation and discharge
– Staying well

Aaron then spoke about Lewisham’s Hospital patient system ‘I Care’ and how data can be used to focus on quality issues and quality behaviour. The group were shown some graphs and quality data to help educate members on how hospital data can help make decisions. We were shown nothing confidential, but numbers and figures. It was pointed out that the graphs look very complex, but I always stress carers MUST get used to poking their noses on data and quality. We need to understand how NHS systems work and how they make decisions on services.

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The following graphs were shown on

Hospital Length of Stay
Discharges by directorate
Readmissions within 30 days
Admissions and Transfers into External Overspill

The next discussion was on how the Hospital’s patient system can help in improving care and outcomes. These will follow on from the Red2Green tool. The Red2Green is a tool to aid daily multi disciplinary team decision making to ensure that every day spent in hospital is meaningful and contributing to a person’s recovery. Red2Green was developed in an acute general hospital but has since been adapted for mental health settings, multiple NHS trusts are now using it and having success in reducing unnecessary delays, length of stay and bed occupancy.

The Ladywell unit based at Lewisham hospital has several mental health wards. We were shown how one of the wards operates in regards to the Red2Green tool. The ward chosen was the ‘Powell Ward’, where we were explained the following

180 Green Days and 4 Red Days for 18 patients in August.
No Delayed Discharges.
Targetted Theme: Awaiting Social Services

The last part of the discussion was on Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). The aim is to agree Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to unblock common barriers to discharges between community and inpatient services. The more I looked at who was involved at the SOP, the more my head began to spin because I felt they need to engage with the forum somehow or the risk is the community would not always know what is going on, however we did mention we have invited Lewisham’s head of social care to attend.

This concludes the update for the September Lewisham MH Carers forum. As a note due to resources, I cannot always update on the 4 forums, but will try every so often.

The next Lewisham MH Carers forum is on the 29th of October

London Carers Festival 2019

IMG_20190921_133155Do you know that if you are a carer, then you are doing something not only for your ‘cared for’, but also for the community. Caring for someone when life can be difficult for yourself should be celebrated. Thats why London ADASS, which stands for Directors of Adult Social Services aimed to put on a festival for carers. The aim of London ADASS is to improve adult social care across London and to identify ways of doing this as cost-effectively as possible.

The festival was developed and brought together by many other carer organisations who help plan and run the festival. The first London borough to have the Carer’s festival was the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Eventually each London borough will have the honor of running the festival each year.

Continue reading →

Southwark MH Carers forum September 2019

MH Forum 20-09-19-page-001Welcome to the September 2019 update of the Southwark Mental Health Carers forum. The forum is aimed at unpaid carers who carer or support those with mental health needs. For example as in a relative or friend suffering schizophrenia, bipolar, ADHD, serve depression, self harming and so on. We even have families attending supporting someone with learning disabilities.

The forum runs once every 3rd thursday month from Southwark Carers. Southwark Carers is a carers centre that Enables, empowers and enriches the lives of carers in the London borough of Southwark.

For the September forum there was a push to get carer members to understand Maudsley’s Carer Strategy. Just like over at the Lewisham MH Carers forum, we hope carers can understand what a carer strategy means, how it could help them as a carer and why NHS trusts work towards a carers strategy. Still, its no good having a strategy done in isolation. Mental Health trusts need to listen to those supporting patients in their services. Carers need to feel valued by being listened to, even if some issues cannot be resolved.

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Unfortunately the SLaM member of staff could not make it, but I managed to go through the strategy some weeks before and developed a presentation on it. Oddly enough, we could not fit in as much about the carers strategy and I am hoping we could cover the rest in October.

I did break down a few things regarding what South London & Maudsley regards as a carer, the issue of identifying carers and training SLaM staff to be carer aware. There are other queries from carers especially about the Triangle of Care policy and also the impact of the Care Act 2014 and if it has done any good for families and carers.

I also presented the new Physical Health project from KingsHealthPartners, which focuses on improving mental and physical well-being for people with mental illnesses. There was excitement that a focus group looks to be developed involvement patients, doctors, researchers and carers on the new a high intensity interval training (HIIT) program for inpatients with mental illnesses.

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Carers are understandably upset that their loved ones are being given medication that although controls the mental illness, can add physical weight to the patient. It can get so bad that it could contribute to the 20 year Mortality Gap in service users. It is about time there should be a controlled exercise program in conjuction with mental health treatment. King’s Health Partners is an Academic Health Sciences Centre where world-class research, education and clinical practice are brought together for the benefit of patients. They bring together a world-leading research led university and three successful NHS Foundation Trusts.

You can find out more about them on the link below

https://www.kingshealthpartners.org/

Talking about NHS trusts. It was good to at least have South London and Maudsley NHS Trust work to engaging with carers regarding its carers strategy, we also had Kings College NHS Trust getting views from carers over in Lambeth and sometimes Southwark, but there still needs to be an update from Guys & St Thomas on their Carer’s policies. We had an update on progress regarding engagement.

I updated the members on the new Carer support group, which I aim to set up in Southwark. The group needs to be carer-led and will receive funding from the mental health organisation Mind. I am awaiting peer support training, since it is a new avenue for me being a peer supporter, but I have unfortunately have carers chat with me regarding serious NHS incidents and they are not so trusting of NHS staff due to being so distruate if their ‘loved one’ has died or come to serious harm. The carer peer support group, will need to have protected space for carers where we can support and learn from each other.

The forum members also discussed several exciting events, one of them being the Celebrating the role of carers across the Capital festival held over at Bromley by Bow Centre. The festival was organised by LondonADASS and the festival was being hosted over in London Borough of Tower Hamlets, East London. More on that festival later in another blog post.

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At the Southwark forum we celebrated the update of Carer member Ana who is developing her skills as a therapist. She has been nominated for awards by The London Awards Brazilian Guide 2019 which is intended to support and support projects and initiatives that empower entrepreneurs.

Ana

Ana has several projects that help those in the Latin community and has set up a project that helps hundreds of children over in Brazil. The members of the Southwark Carers forum are aware of the contribution the Latin community make and are aware of how communities feel pushed out by development in the area.

https://brasileirosnainglaterra.com/eventos/guia-londres-awards-woman-2019/

Ana invited members of the carers forum to the Brazilian embassey for a wellbeing festival and we look forward to being part of how the Latin community are inviting of others even if they are feeling welcomed.

I will update the Southwark Carer members on how the Carer festival went in October.

Lambeth ‘Carers Voices’ September update

Thanks for stopping by my carer website. This is an update from the Lambeth area. Did you know that Carers Hub Lambeth has several forums? I managed to attend their ‘Carers Voices’ forum which is held at We Are 336 in Brixton on Thursday Sept 19th 10.30 am – 12.00 pm.

So what is Carers Hub Lambeth?

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Carers’ Hub Lambeth is an independent local charity based in Brixton. They are there to reduce the stresses experienced by unpaid carers who live in or care for somebody living in Lambeth. They advocate, refer and provide a wellbeing and empowering resource for carers in the borough.

For the Carers Hub Lambeth forum, we were joined by Stephanie who is busy working on Kings College NHS trust’s Carers strategy. As you know that NHS trust is massive with at least several other hospital sites from the Princess Royal University Hospital in Kent to King’s College Hospital Clinics in the middle east to along with a wide range of NHS services, some I have listed below.

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Acute and emergency care
Critical care, radiology and MEP (medical engineering and physics)
Dental
Haematology and precision medicine
Liver and renal
Neurosciences
Pharmacy
Planned surgery, ophthalmology and optometry
Post-acute, planned medicine and outpatients
Theatres and anaesthetics
Therapy, rehabilitation and allied clinical services
Women’s health

and much more…..

However something critical is missing? Although not all patients may need family support, there is a lack of focus on how the NHS trust involves and incorporates carers. This is why Kings College NHS trust has been engaging with carer groups and forums from Lambeth to Southwark. I was amazed Stephanie from Kings remembered me when she used to work for Lewisham Healthwatch, since I spend a lot of time engaging with the healthwatches (I am sure they must be fed up for me). Still, this is great news that a hospital has managed to employ someone with such a strong engagement background.

We had many detailed and focused suggestions from carers at the forum. Plus we were provided with how the Trust looks to take on the new Carers Passport, which helps to identify carers and gives access to other resources that are useful for families and carers. Guys & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust also provide the carers passport, but might be developing a few other things for families and carers.

After the consultation, the forum were presented with updates from the Lambeth PPG network. We looked into the use of online appointments and digital health applications. There was a good discussion on how carers can influence their GP surgery to provide better engagement and support for carers providing support to a patient.

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It is important carers query how GP surgeries are doing in the borough of Lambeth and if the doctor’s practice even have a Patient Participation Group. This concludes my update for the Lambeth’s Carers Voices forum until the Lambeth Mental Health carers forum

World Suicide Prevention Day 2019

businessman sittingWorld Suicide Prevention Day is an awareness day observed on 10 September every year, in order to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides. World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD),  runs on the 10 September and is set by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP). where the World Health Organisation also sponsor the day. The theme for 2019 is called Working Together to Prevent Suicide.

The WHO and IASP also work with governments and other partners to ensure that suicide is no longer stigmatized, criminalized or penalized.

Continue reading →

Service User Advocacy Exhibition

Thanks for stopping by at another carer blog post. I thought to quickly drum up a page on my latest visit to the Bethlem’s Museum of the mind. I was excited to be part of their new exhibition “Impatient! Stories of Service User Advocacy”.

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The exhibition which is over at the Bethlem Museum just inside the Bethlem Royal Hospital, celebrates the history of Service User advocacy. There is history on how the groups and organisations projected their causes and how they relate to psychiatry. I felt that sometimes when it comes to NHS exhibitions they tend to promote much of what has taken place in the hospitals, but showing what the community or inpatients have done, can give more of a holistic picture.

Continue reading →

Lewisham MH Carers forum August 2019 update

133Welcome to the August update of the Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum. This forum runs from Carers Lewisham over by Forest Hill, just near Forest Hill train station. The forum focuses on unpaid carers who support/care for someone with mental health needs e.g. schizophrenia, eating disorders, bipolar, major depression, addictions and so on. I even try and involve those caring for learning disabilities.

The forum tends to try and form a relationship with the local mental health trust, that being South London & Maudsley, we also seek for ways to educate, discuss and empower families and carers. We also seek engagement from Lewisham Hospital, Lewisham CCG, Lewisham council, Lewisham Healthwatch and other important stakeholders.

I have always mentioned to members or perhaps anyone that knowledge and information is power. So for August we were very fortunate enough to have South London & Maudsley’s former Patient Information Manager. Roslyn Byfield is a trained Counseller and therapist, she has her own practice and is very active in discussions about BACP, which stands for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. I have known her for quite a while now and was happy that she took some time out of her schedule to engage with families and carers.

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As she placed leaflets and booklets on the tablet for carers to take, it brought back a lot of memories. Infact one of the booklets, which was the physical wellness booklet won an award.

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We were hoping to be joined by SLaM quality Improvement, but they are more likely to attend in September. Plus in some ways, perhaps that was a good thing because the forum had a major discussion with Roslyn. Part of the talk was on carer empowerment and several organisations were mentioned. We also talked about the Government’s anticipated release of the Green Paper which focuses on Social care, but there has been major disappointment that political parties are kicking the social care can down the road. There was also talk about the Carers Action Plan, but many are skeptical about it.

In regards to empowerment we were told to form links regarding the NHS Constitution and focus on the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 as well as the Care Act 2014. We can make the mistake of trying to hold authorities to account, but its very hard to do that on your own and getting links to the human rights organisations can really speed things up if carers are not given the right information and support.

Here is a link, which might interest unpaid carers on their human rights.

https://www.bihr.org.uk/carersguide

The forum also focused on European Convention on Human Rights and what to learn from them. This could be useful if policies really begin to put pressure on carers and it would be important to make links.

At some point I will map out organisations to pull in to educate families and carers and also form stronger links as high up as possible.

There was some talk about the review of the Mental Health Act, which hopefully can put a spotlight on how families and carers can be pushed aside, especially when a loved one comes to harm, neglect or serious incident. We spoke about the problem with documentation from the health services, but it was mentioned some documents can be complex to stop people delving too far into things. It can be a strategy at some meetings to place jargon to ward off stakeholders querying why NHS systems are not working or why is there a high rate of Serious incidents. A lot of talk was on quality improvement, but without engagement then some members were wondering what to do.

We were focusing a lot on NHS constitution Section 3A and how it can support families and carers. Plus focusing on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. It does not help that guidelines are not enforceable and there was queries as to why NHS services are struggling. It does not help that funds are lacking for NHS trusts and then government places targets putting staff under pressure, which in turn affects families and carers.

We did not spend all the time focusing on carer empowerment, but also on therapy and counselling. I myself certainly have had not very good experiences with counselling, especially family therapy. I felt the outcome was a way to cover up the lack of services and then blame the family or carer for the patient relapsing. Some carers are in a worse situation when they are pressured to admit they are the cause of mental distress, leaving them confused, stigmatised, ashamed and isolated.

This is when accreditation came into the discussion. It is well known that there are good and bad counselors, but what happens if accreditation does not pick out the bad ones? Who is to blame? The big push for IAPTs has caused a massive break up of the counselling industry. Some people feel that counselling is not a journey, but now like popping in for advice. Roslyn mentioned counselling should not dis-empower the patient into looking for advice. Counsellers need to have life experience before they can examine someones life, no course be it a BSc or Honours would be enough for such a profession. There was talk about the BACP and PSA (Professional Standards Authority), which carers should keep an eye out for updates.

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Lastly there was talk about how carers MUST make time for themselves, it is important to look after our own health and wellbeing with emphasis put on spirituality. Many of the members felt that they were pressured to focus on their cared for, but it was mentioned that such mindset should change. It was however not an order but to be mindful of our own health needs.

Below was a set of tips given by a veteran carer.

• Seek help at an early stage
• Don’t be ashamed of mental illness
• Speak out if you think something is wrong
• Take care of yourself with counselling and exercise
• Keep in touch with your spiritual side

I was glad that Roslyn had time for the forum and will certainly follow up on making those links. The forum was told that they already have the resources to make some serious pathways, but there still needs to be some support for empowerment.

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This concludes the August update for the Lewisham MH Carers forum.