Category Archives: Carer Events

Review and updates on carer events I attend

Carers and hospital discharge toolkit – St George’s University Hospital

Here is another blog post from carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I recently just came from a steering group event from St George’s University. This took place on the 30th of October. The groups focus was on how the hospital trust can work towards identifying and supporting unpaid carers.

St Georges University Hospital

It might seem such a silly question, but I am sure someone out there is asking why should hospitals work towards identifying unpaid carers?

There simple question is unpaid carers are struggling. They struggle with caring for someone and will expect to struggle when their loved one is discharged from hospital. If the carer is not identified then all to often the carer will have a bad experience of hospital services, which will probably impact on the cared for.

This has to change and fortunately there is a new strategy to improve carers discharge using a toolkit called the “Carers and Hospital Discharge toolkit“

This initiative is from NHS England which was co-produced with carers and patients in mind.

Every so often I pay some attention to acute hospital trusts. I even have a carers stall at St George’s University hospital, just as I do at some other hospitals. I was delighted to be invited to the steering group to see how things are progressing with the hospital trust.

Implementing a carer initiative regarding patient discharge is no easy feat. St George’s university hospital is a massive trust with around 9000 staff. Part of the Epsom and St Helier group. St George’s serves a population of 1.3 million across southwest London possibily covering 8 London Boroughs.

So what were the updates from St Georges Carers Steering group?

Well with the group chaired by Wendy Doyle who is the NHS trust Head of Patient Experience.

There was the launch for Carers Week in June 2023, the NHS acute trust has done the following

  • Started to connect with colleagues and key collaborations including healthwatches, NHS staff and carer centres.
  • St Georges team have also Identified an Executive Sponsor
  • Plus they continue to raise awareness of the toolkit
  • They hosted the first steering group with the focus on when to run the group.
  • The group also looked to how they could implement the toolkit.
  • They looked at implementing toolkit as a QI project
  • The team also spent time with discharge team, Rise, Cerner leads, London care Record, and NHSE to explore date capture

What impressed me on what St Georges hospital trust were doing is tailoring their patient system “Cerner” with a method of recording carer information.

There also has been a lot of work on the new carer’s leaflet, which was co-design leaflet for staff to signposting to carers. Since I have a carers stall, the leaflets will be useful to help engage with carers.

There will be a lot of work to do, but I am impressed with how far the university hospital is making a difference for unpaid carers.

Healthwatch Lambeth – World Mental Health Day 2023

Live in Lambeth? Healthwatch Lambeth are marking World Mental Health Day for Wednesday 18th of October. The aim of Healthwatch is to give citizens and communities a stronger voice to influence and challenge how health and social care services are provided within their locality.

World Mental Health Day 2023 is an opportunity for people and communities to unite behind the theme ‘Mental health is a universal human right” to improve knowledge, raise awareness and drive actions that promote and protect everyone’s mental health as a universal human right.

North West London Cygnet Carers, Families and Friends Network Event

Welcome to another blog post from carer activist Matthew McKenzie. As a carer I find it vital that carers of those going through mental ill health get a chance for engagement from services. Friends and families tend to hidden away supporting their loved ones. They want the best support, but often struggle to be heard.

As one of the carer ambassadors for Cygnet health care, I was delighted to attend and support their latest carer network event. There have been a series of carer network events taking place around Cygnet sites and the latest one was held over at Cygnet Hospital over in Harrow. The event was planned in coproduction by Laura Sheridan Group Service Improvement Manager for Cygnet. Laura helps lead on the carer network programme and triangle of care focus at Cygnet.

For our latest carer event we had a fantastic line up of speakers. Cygnet health care want carers to be part of their network and want carers to be involved by leading from the front. Our first speaker was Lesley Mellor who is Parent Carer. She is also one of the carer ambassadors for Cygnet health care. Lesley shared her knowledge about the importance of including carers and the promise that Cygnet health care will be there to support unpaid carers.

The next speaker was Sharon Spurling who is the Triangle of Care Programme Lead at Carers Trust. Cygnet Health care wants to strenghen its policies to have that carer focus. The triangle of care programme offers that chance to raise carer identification and engagement to the highest standard. Several of Cygnet hospitals are working on triangle of care standards at their sites. With carers at our latest network event, it was a chance to promote what triangle of care is all about.

We also had Julie Garbett present about Julie is a Regional Nurse Director (London and South), Cygnet Julie is a registered mental health nurse of 20 years, with a vast range of experience gained working for NHS Mental Health Trusts and CMHTS in the South East. Julie spoke about how important carers are to Cygnet. Julie helped identify how carers are not just one group, unpaid carers can be anyone.

At the event carers were looked after with a lovely meal and a chance to network with speakers and with other carers.

We then heard from Matthew Gill who is Director of Psychology Services Midlands at Cygnet. He is a Consultant Forensic Psychologist with over 20 years of experience. Matthew is a committee member for the British Psychological Society and an AIMS assessor for the Royal College of Psychiatry. Matthew spoke about the importance of talking therapies. You can see from one of the slides on what Matthew covered below.

It was important we get to hear from the lived experience voice of the carer. Julian de Takats – Parent carer told his story and his thoughts about the carer experience. Julian as another carer ambassodor for cygnet health is passionate about carers being able to network and working together in a peer environment. Julian worked in the music industry before accidentally becoming a carer. Julian has been an active member of the Cygnet Carers Network since 2022 and is now proudly an Expert by Experience Carer Ambassador.

Next up to present at the carer network event was Dr Richard Church who is the Medical Director, Cygnet Hospital Woking. Dr Church studied medicine at the University of Cambridge and undertook general psychiatric training at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. After working in the NHS for over 15 years, in November 2017, Dr Church joined Cygnet Woking as Medical Director and Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist. Dr Richard spoke about the barriers carers face when speaking to services. Richard gave an honest presentation that cygnet also faces challenges when working with carers, but he also gave thoughts on how cygnet with working with those challenges.

My thoughts summing up the event

The location, theme, presentations and speakers were excellent. Time and time again I state it is important the mental health, social care and health providers hold engagement events on what they offer to carers. It is not enough to promote an offer to carers as unpaid carers need to be involved and also need empowered to network, develop peer skills and work with providers.

Cygnet health care are setting an example that carers play an important part of recovery. Carers should not be hidden away struggling to support and provide care. I do admit that health and social care is struggling with the challenges they face, but we all need to work together. I hope we continue to reach out to carers, promote carer focused policies and be held to account on our promise to carers. This is a new journey for cygnet, but we want to share the journey with our carers.

Barclays Bank – Carers Week Awareness event

Welcome back to another blog post by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie.

It has come to the end of Carers Week 2023. I decided to do one last final event after a successful carers week. This event was located at Barclays Bank over in Croydon.

As part of their support for Carers Week 2023, Barclays Bank was promoting Carers UK information and resources at their flagship UK branches below. As a Carers UK Community Connector volunteer I felt I could help raise awareness of Carers Week with Barclays’ customers.

Carers Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges unpaid carers face and recognise the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.

This would allow me to connect with unpaid carers who could access support.

Just so you know Carers UK is a national charity looking to make life better for the 5.7 million carers across the UK.

As it stands, a carer is a person of any age who provides unpaid care and support to a family member, friend or neighbour who is disabled, has an illness or long-term condition, or who needs extra help as they grow older.

So with the awareness campaign of Carers Week, it helped to promote awareness of caring and promote access to support for carers. Just by chance across the road Barclays bank in Croydon, was also the Carers Information service.

The Carers Information Service provides information, advice and support for carers living in, or caring for someone who lives in, the London Borough of Croydon. The staff were kind to provide me some leaflets incase I need to refer carers there.

I spent several hours that saturday speaking to customers who wanted to know more about Carers UK. I also brought some samaritan cards along. Staff at the bank were kind and supportive. There was a focus on community spirit as the bank wants to support people from all walks of life, including carers.

Barclays Bank also have information available on their website for customers if they are needing to set up access to support someone they are caring for https://www.barclays.co.uk/third-party-access/

Thanks for reading.

Carer reception at No 10 for Carers Awareness week 2023

Welcome back fellow carer readers. Another blog post from Carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie. At the time of this post, it is Carers Awareness week. This is the week where awareness and support for carers is promoted from the 5th to 11th June 2023. Carers Awareness week is an annual awareness campaign. It helps to remind others that even caring for someone unwell does not have to go unrecognised.

Caring for someone close can be a hidden and isolating reality for millions across the UK. So it helps to know what the promise is from decision makers.

I was fortunate enough to be included at a reception for carers and carer representatives at 10 Downing street. Just so you know, that address is the official residence and office of the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Everyone was friendly and welcoming. Even Larry the Cat

I have always said to others that if you are going to be an activist it would be wise to raise the profile of what you are campaigning for. Of course, most of the time I am trying to network carers together. It helps to understand what we all go through and why we go through challenges as carers.

The reception led by Carers UK for Carers Week was also supported by Age UK, Carers Trust, MND Association, the Lewy Body Society, Rethink Mental Illness and Oxfam. We are all partners in raising awareness for unpaid carers.

It was not just a reception, as we were greated by Minister for Care, Helen Whately.

The minister announced a cross-government roundtable to champion carers’ needs across Whitehall. Helen also introduced more measures to support carers across the country. Despite the challenges the government is under, it is important that there is a focus on carers doing so much to care for those close to them. Unpaid carers asking for hardly anything except to be noticed for their struggle and sacrifice as health and social care face great challenges.

I am grateful to have attended and network with fellow carers and those doing so much to support caring. We want a caring community and it is only fair to promote and support this. You can read more about the fuction below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cross-government-action-announced-to-champion-carers

Thanks for reading.

Carers Week – NHS Toolkit launch at St Georges university hospital trust.

Welcome to a special carers week 2023 blog from Matthew McKenzie carer activist and author. As a carer’s activist, I often try raise awarness of unpaid carers. I even try to raise awareness at hospital NHS Trusts. One of the hospital NHS Trusts is based over in South West London. This hospital is St George’s University hospital.

Basically it is one of the country’s principal teaching hospitals, which is shared with St George’s, University of London, which trains medical students and carries out advanced medical research. The NHS trust has more than 9,000 staff and is one of the four major trauma centres for London.

I actually run a carers information stall at the hospital to remind staff and carers about the carer’s role.

It was great to hear that I was invited to the London discharge toolkit which is being rolled out across all NHS acute trusts in London. The toolkit was developed by Debbie Hustings involving many carer organisations and carers with co-production.

With my involvement in NHS England, I have a keen interest to see how the toolkit increases the focus on unpaid carers.

The toolkit serves many purposes, as in educating NHS staff, raising carers rights and examining challenges in the health system.

I have fedback my thoughts to NHS England regarding the toolkit and a few other things. Below is the link to the toolkit

https://carers.org/resources/all-resources/142-carers-and-hospital-discharge-toolkit-for-london-hospitals-and-community-providers

So on 8th of June I attended the Launch of the toolkit at St Georges university hospital

I was joined by NHS England carer lead for London as we spoke to NHS staff working so hard to make changes for unpaid carers.

We also spoke to carer centre representatives, carers and third party organisations. I picked up a number of leaflets for my carer’s stall, but also spoke to a few people about the information provided.

All in all, staff at St Georges were confident of rising to the challenge to engage and support unpaid carers.

Regional Carer event – Cygnet Hospital Bierley

Welcome to another blog post from Carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I do many roles to connect with unpaid carers and I am now a Expert by Experience Carer Ambassador for Cygnet. I want to keep carers at the heart of healthcare services and one of the best ways to do this is speak at conferences.

Cygnet Health Care is taking on the challenge of and striving to make sure mental health carers get the best support possible. Cygnet are running “Regional Carer Network events”.

This recent Carer Network Event took place at one of Cygnet’s sites. That being Cygnet Hospital Bierley.

Before the event, Cygnet’s Group Service Improvement Manager Lauran Sheridan provided support to make sure Carer Ambassador’s were looked after. It was thanks to Laura that we were given a voice and place to reach out to carers who often feel they are forgotten.

We had a lovely stay at Premier Inn and the food was lovely. It was important to get a good nights rest to feel refreshed and ready to engage with staff at Cygnet and unpaid carers.

Just before the event, I took the time to explore the wonderful City of Bradford and event went walking along some rocks to watch the sunset.

AT THE EVENT

As usual, the first thing I look for when I enter a hospital is to examine what is displayed for unpaid carers. I was glad to see a Carer’s board and advertisements for carer events and initiatives e.g.

  • Events Calendar,
  • Awareness of Carers Week 2023,
  • who is the Carer’s Lead
  • Triangle of Care
  • Family & Carer strategy
    …..and lots more..

I opened the event with a focus on why I think carer networks are so important. I often write books on why carers need to connect and also why services should provide the empowerment and platform for carers to connect. If we connect, we can listen and try to understand the complex world of unpaid carers.

The speakers for the Regional Carer Network event were as follows.

Kate Mercer who is a Family Advocate from Black Belt Advocacy. Kate spoke about carer’s rights. She has worked on national projects with NICE, CSIP, NDTi and NHS England, most recently looking into the quality and availability of advocacy within in-patient settings for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

We also had Christian Young who is the General Counsel at Cygnet Health Care. Christian qualified as a lawyer in 1998, he then joined NHS England as Deputy Head of Legal Services before moving on to Cygnet.

Next to present was Philip Winterbottom who is Head of Safeguarding at Cygnet Health Care. Philip did an excellent presentation on the importance of safeguarding at health services. It is important we all know our duties to provide the best care of those who use our services.

We also was joined by Jo-Ann McAuliffe who is Deputy Director of Nursing. Jo spoke about the importance of recognising carers and how Cygnet can work with unpaid carers.

Lesley Mellor who is the other Expert by Experience Carer Ambassador for Cygnet spoke about her experience of providing care. Lesley is the is the chair of Dorset Parent Carer Council.

During the event, attendees were certainly looked after. We had a lovely lunch and I actually took some of the food home with me.

Cygnet also provided carers we lots of information, where Laura and Jo promoted Cygnet’s new Carers Strategy with more carer information to take home after the event.

All in all I enjoyed the regional carer network event and have connected to a few carers. The network will take time to develop, but we can all learn from each other. As the core of the Triangle of Care, we need to balance the connection so carers are not shut out.

Thanks for reading. More blogs to come for Carers Week 2023

Carers Trust Conference – Making Carers Count 2023

Welcome back to another blog post by carer activist Matthew McKenzie. This site focuses on those who provide unpaid care to someone close to them. Recently I have just come back from a 2 day conference held over at Conference Aston just by Aston University Campus. The event held on 17th May was Carers Trust’s “Making Carers Count” conference.

You might have seen a couple of blog posts about Carers Trust. Basically Carers Trust is a national charity that works to transform the lives of unpaid carers. Carers trust believe in partnership in order to give support and voices to unpaid carers. They have 124 Network Partners all doing their bit to transform change for unpaid carers.

Basically Carers Trust want unpaid carers to be heard, valued and supported.

So with the “Making Carers Count” conference. We were joined by some of the network partners to “Reflect, Connect & Learn”.

The day kicked off with a carer panel discussion. We were joined by 3 carers all giving their voice on the changes to their lives in providing unpaid care. Those on the panel were not your average carers. They also empowered other carers and were knowledgable about their caring role. A young carer on the panel mentioned she had other skills and should not be counted as just a carer.

She was also joined other carers talking about their journey and how their own carers centre helped them.

The attendees and network partners paired up to work on a session looking to understanding different carer projects. Plus we also celebrated collective achievements. In attendance were representatives from Tower Hamelets, Carers UK, Mid Yorkshire , blackpool carers, Wandsworth Carers, Credu carers, Crossroad carers, Carers First, Carers Heart of England, City and Hackney carers, Sussex Carers, Northants Carers, Newcastle carers centre, Bridgend Carers Centre, Harrow Carers and many more.

It was amazing to hear all the good work each carer centre had done. We have done so much over the Carers Trust programme, but there is much more to do. The networking was followed up by a Collective solutions event. Carers Trust then presented the importance of working together and we had a discussion on project challenges regarding the Making Carers Count Programme.

There were some great project updates

  • Carers Heart of England – Projects on the rise of engagement with their cultural carer groups and key events such as the Diwali Event.
  • Wandsworth Carers – Their LGBTO+ carers peer support group
  • Improving Lives Plymouth – Projects on the importance of peer to peer support growing, due to monthly drop ins and activities.
  • Newcastle Carers – Developing and understanding of the needs of carers from Asylum seeker and refugee communities in Newcastle
  • City & Hackney – Engaging with young people, especially using technology like their whatsApp group.

There were more project highlights from aother carer centres, but the blog would go on forever if I listed all of them. The conference moved on to discussing and identifying actions and recommendations for the Carers Trust Network due to their latest “Making Carers Count” Programme.

For Day 2 of the conference, I was delighted to be included on the panel discussion of developing and designing inclusive services for carers. I was joined on the panel with Andy Barber from “Caring Together” and Vicky Morgan who is the Head of Young Carers and Young Adult Carers at Carers Trust. Thanks to Trisha Thompson (Carers Trust head of grants) hosting the panel.

My thoughts regarding service inclusion is that it takes time for carers to get involved. To be honest inclusive services should be including carers at the start, especially hearing carer stories and picking up themes that carers struggle with.

With those themes e.g. problems with carer assessments, being heard as a carer, or access to a service. It might allow the carer to give input on how to improve the quality of services.

I mentioned earlier on in the blog that Northamptonshire carers attended and at my talk I mentioned that the service provided by Northants carers actually won the HSJ 2022 award for system led support for carers. The award for 2021 went to Sussex carers, but it does go to show that having such network partners makes a difference for carers.

We can all learn from each other.

I could not stay for the full conference, although there were excellent presentations from other attendees. Plus a pleasent suprise to meet Carers UK staff.

overall I enjoyed the event and was very grateful to be given a voice as a carer.

You can find more about Carers Trust from the link below.

https://carers.org/

A Right Royal Celebration

Welcome to another carer blog post by carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I raise awareness of carers who try so hard to provide unpaid care to loved ones. However I am not the only one fighting for carer empowerment or making sure carers get counted.

We have several national organisations promoting the value of caring. One of those charities is Carers UK. A major charity giving the voice to carers all around the country. I have been doing quite a few things for Carers UK, one of them being the co-chair of their ethnic/BAME carers advisory group.

I have also attended and spoke at Carers UK conferences and have been given major support regarding my poems.

So today was a special treat in order to celebrate all what good works are promoted across the nation. We were invited to the Royal Garden Party, which was a special occasion due to the recent coronation of King Charles III.

At any party or event I tend to network or try to network, so it was great to meet other carers including CEO of Carers UK Helen Walker.

The weather held up the best it could so the day went perfectly well, but I did bring an Umbrella just incase. As we walked across the grounds we marvelled at the Royal gardens. I can imagine myself being lost in thought as there was so much to see.

After walking through the gardens, I could hear music growing louder and this was coming from the royal bands. We were spoilt for choice as there were two bands playing at each end of the grounds.

We then waited to greet the royals, but I was hungry left for some food and came back only to find the Royals had greeted one of our group. Serves me right for being too greedy.

Still the food was marvellous, but the problem was that I ate the food too fast in order to try network again.

The staff were pleasant and friendly and often stopped to chat to make sure everything was ok. I felt I was the king the way the staff treated me. One of them showed us some Ice Cream as she explained the different flavours.

It was not long before it started to rain with that famous British weather, but by that time I had talked to the other carers who contribute so much to carer movement.

All in all, I felt special and to be treated to such an important function shows the Royals have a focus for a caring community.

If you want to find more about Carers UK, check out the link below.

https://www.carersuk.org/

Cygnet Carer event – Maidstone Hospital

Welcome back to another blog by carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I often blog about raising awareness for those caring for someone with mental illness. If I am not raising awareness, then I am more likely speaking at events or conferences.

I am helping to promote a carer’s network with Cygnet Healthcare who are taking on the challenge of applying Triangle of Care into their services. So far I have opened several carer events at some of the Cynet hospitals around the country along with other speakers who are invested in raising the profile of unpaid carers.

For this event, I attended Cygnet Hospital over in Maidstone for another regional carer event. This was an opportunity to engage with carers from the area of Kent, especially since I am involved with Kent and Medway NHS Partnership Trust. So I was keen to travel to Maidstone and talk to carers.

We had a packed room of carers and professionals interested to hear talks about the importance of supporting carers.

There were certain things I was looking for at the hospital, especially the effort staff had put into promoting the carer event. I noticed lots of leaflets introducing what Cygnet can do for unpaid carers. Other information was on Cygnet’s carers strategy, carers passport and a chance for people to feedback about services.

I even managed to view the carer’s board.

We had some excellent speakers at the event. Plus it was great to see David Wilmott who is Cgynet’s Director of Nursing open the event. We also had a powerful talk from Lesley Mellor who told her story as a carer and the importance of carer empowerment.

Other speakers were Stephen Firn OBE who is Cygnet’s CEO for Healthcare division. Stephen spoke about his mission to make sure cygnet hospitals have a high focus of carer awareness. During my talk, I reminded attendees that when senior staff attend such events, it shows how the organisation values unpaid carers.

For my talk, I read poem number 28 on the importance of a carer’s network. Often carers do their role in isolation and behind closed doors.

The nature of the illness makes it difficult for mental health carers to connect due to stigma of caring,, being unsure of their role and also the stigma of mental illness.

I asked both professionals and carers their thoughts on the importance of providing care and the importance of connecting to a network.

I was proud that the healthcare professionals were knowledgable about the importance of including carers when providing services. This is done within the spirit of the Triangle of care.

We also had talks and presentations from Dr Erica De Lange who is Cygnet’s Regional director of Psychology. Plus Caroline Harris-Birtles who is Head of Nurse Education at Cygnet Healthcare. She educated carers about the importance of the nursing profession and how nurses can help unpaid carers.

Lastly we had a talk from Jennifer Vincent who works at Involve Kent. Jennifer is the team Lead in the Community for Carers. Involve is an organisation that focuses on Healthy, connected people and communities. Jennifer talked about how Involve empowers and support Carers, enabling them to care well for others and improve their own health and wellbeing.

I again have to thank Laura Sheridan who looked after both Lesley, myself and attendees at the carer event. I look forward to more events in future.