Here is the update for the Lambeth mental health carers forum held over at 336 Brixton road. This forum alternates in time, so that carers can I do attend during the daytime or evening.

For this particular forum we had two people engaging with the members. The first being Steve badger who is the clinical lead for the Lambeth home treatment team. Home treatment teams are very important in regards to introducing is service user or patient back into the community, but how does this work with families and carers?

Steve badger explained how the home treatment team worked. He took time to talk about the structure of the home treatment team over in the borough of Lambeth. A lot of discussions centered back onto the “place of safety ward”, this is because a lot of the members were interested in how people were introduced to the service especially in Crisis.

As usual bed management was often talked about at the forum because there’s a lot of worrying on how patients are introduced to the service not just on me how they end up back into the community. A fair bit of discussion was on consent especially when the patient ends up back home with the family how would the home treatment team engage with the carer?

Steve kindly explain other useful support which carers or patients can use especially the 24-hour Slam helpline and also using the “Living Well network”. There was also some discussion on the new structure changes wear Slam is going back to Borough based services. We look forward to hearing more about the new structure in future forums.

The next speaker at the june lambeth mental health carers forum was Bobby Allen from “carers 4 carers”.

Carers 4 Carers is a charity group set up in Lambeth to offer care services for those who themselves care for their disabled, sick and elderly loved ones. Carers 4 Carers was set up by and is run by Carers and ex Carers. Who want to use their skills and experience of caring to support other Carers.

Bobby explained how carers get together and exchanged ideas we found out that “carers 4 carers” is a great place to relax socialize and network with other carers. The Lambeth charity is running several initiatives one of them is called “inspirational champions”, which looks at confidence building. Another project is called “Viva”, which concentrates on carers you are over 50 and allows them a chance to exercise and go on trips. The charity has one funding from “Sports England” in order to get more carers to become active.

Carers 4 Carers have been running sessions at the Oval and Dulwich Sports Centre. The charity is based at Brixton recreational centre. You can find out more about Carers 4 Carers at the following link http://www.lambethforestnetwork.org.uk/carers-4-carers/

Next was a discussion on the recent Slam Carers listening event. This took place on the 27th of June 2018 over at Coin Street Community Centre in Lambeth. To make it easier have broken down the discussion into bullet points

• Those who attended liked the main speaker who was speaking about planning for the future and where interested in the pack provided by Birmingham & Soulihill NHS Foundation Trust, which led to a discussion on its content and the empowerment carers got to implement changes with support from the Trust, clinicians and Council.

• They also enjoyed the workshop so especially on confidentiality and being shown in the short film.
• Some felt the medication workshop with was good but a bit too presentational.
• Although I could not attend in the afternoon I heard a lot about what people thought regarding the panel of question and it was good to see the chief exec attend.
• We felt it was a shame that few carers from the borough of Lambeth could only attend.
• Plus the events seem to lack a way to discuss on tables with carers and staff.
• Some felt that the confidentiality film was a bit too staged.
• One carer was unhappy that her question was not asked during the panel debate.

Moving away from the recent carers listening event, I updated the Lambeth carers forum on a new carers support group being set up over at Lambeth Hospital. We hope that the carers support group can link into the Lambeth carers forum. In regards to other updates for the Lambeth mental carers forum is that members are looking forward to updates from Lambeth Healthwatch, updates from health Locker advisory board meeting and one of the Lambeth MPs attending the Forum in future.

This concludes the update for the Lambeth mental health carers forum for June 2018.