Involving carers in co-production

Welcome to another carer blog by Matthew McKenzie. You might already know, I am an author raising awareness of unpaid carers. One of the books I wrote touches on the subject of co-production. The book I wrote titled “Experiencing mental health caregiving – unpaid carers” had several chapters regarding co-production.

However, why have unpaid carers be involved in designing health and social care services? Lets first look at the problems and challenges.

The problems

Health and social care sometimes do not meet eye to eye with unpaid carers, there are a lot of assumptions made about carers, there are also a lot of biases on the needs of unpaid carers. We can certainly champion the good works of health and social care, but to be realistic there are plenty of problems as well.

  • One shoe fits all policy, different carers have different needs
  • patient centred to the point of ignoring the carer
  • Limited resources means carers just cope
  • Co-production on a complex service might put people off being involved in design
  • The leader in co-production might still have “I know what is best” attitude, this can also put people of being involved.
  • History of bad results damages reputation, so carers feel they have heard it all before.

These are some of the challenges and problems health & social care services will have if they want carers to be involved in co-production.

Some solutions

So we have just touched on the bad news regarding co-production, but there is also good news, there are some solutions that are floating around.

We just cannot rule out co-production even though it has been around a long time. In fact co-production has been around so long, that it might have been watered down. The word “co-produce” can be almost a throw away term to get people excited.

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There might be a lot of asumptions made about the uses of co-production. If we want coproduced and co-promoted services, we have to put those involved first. Those services will have to be flexible enough to offer solutions tailored to individual carers. It is not an easy task since those services need to recognise carers as a protected characteristic. Carers are vulnerable and they do need guidence, support and care for themselves. If carers are not valued, then they will struggle in their role providing unpaid care.

Co-production should raise the voices of those involved. This means we avoid the “One shoe fits all policy”. It means better service delivery that benefits as many as possible.

What next?

Those involved in inclusive service design need to be skilled, they also need to know there are issues within those services and those carers need to be confident in challenging those issues. This is not easy as health & social care are very complex entities. We have organisations like Healthwatch monitoring and collecting feedback from health services. Some things concerning the running of health & social care services are complex by design. So to expect carers to challenge those services is a tall ask.

Even before including carers in designing a fair health and social care service, carers need to knock on the door to request co-production. To make matters more difficult, not everything is actually co-production, due to time restraints on service delivery, co-production activities may be rushed or brushed aside towards tokenism. It is a big problem, but to be realistic sometimes it cannot always be avoided.

Earlier on in this blog I have mentioned time as a cost, carers can usually use their own expert of experience to express their needs, but transmitting that experience into services will mean carers will have to be trained to champion co-production.

Conclusions and findings

From my 2nd book “Experiencing mental health caregiving – unpaid carers”

I wrote upon the subject of inclusiveness within several chapters, one of them was Chapter 6 – Co-production and involvement.

I asked several questions, this question asked “What do you think co-production means to unpaid carers?”

With the answers provided from unpaid carers, activists and researchers one response was interesting regarding co-production.

“Co-production means that a carer is involved in service improvements, support groups and forums, because their lived experiences can be more valuable than the academic research. Co-production can help a carer to interact with other people in a similar situation to them. The carer can feel valued when their contributions have been used wisely. – Annette Davis – Carer and carer peer activist”

As mentioned earlier there are important keywords e.g. lived experiences, groups and forums, feeling valued and contributions.

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For Chapter 30 – Co-producing in health and social care. I touched again on services. I was interested in the challenges as mentioned earlier in this blog

The question asked “What are the challenges of co-production?”

A carer responded with the following.

“Money, I think the challenge is it can cost so much money, you can’t just sort of say to a professional to just go ahead and co-produce things. You’ve got to fit this round everything else and go to a meeting, because you see, these professional meetings are beginning to end. They go through an agenda and with Co-production, you can’t really do that. Not at the early stages. If you are actually coproducing, then you actually have to sit down and think of ways of facilitating and carefully plan coproducing. This requires time and unfortunately time is expensive in terms of the professional’s time. If you want it, you have to pay for it. The people e.g. patients/carers who are co-producing should be paid as well. So we have got a commitment. However, from the professional side, you’ve got to pay for their time as well. Its expensive. – (Ann – Unpaid carer)”

What can we take away from her response?

Inclusive service design will need some form of co-production, but will definately need resources. It is not always about money, it is about time and commitment. Things have to be planned carefully, interest must be kept up for those involved. Co-production can also be expensive, but if done right it does not have to be so costly, but it certainly should value those involved.

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.

March Carer & Mental Health News Updates 2023

Latest carer and mental health news for March by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie

March 2023 Carer and Mental Health news <- read more news items here

For the March edition on unpaid caring and mental health we have

Swindon Carers Centre – Young Carers Action Day 2023 – Video of Swindon Young carers Action day 2023

Northamptonshire Carers Podcast – Podcast of Mark Major CEO of Northamptonshire Carers talking about the growth and success over the last 30 years

“Important step” for Carer’s Leave Bill as it passes Second Reading in House of Lords – Carers UK has campaign to get carers a right to Carer’s Leave

Supporting Oxfordshire’s army of unpaid carers – Oxfordshire County Council to develop a new all-age unpaid carers strategy by a process known as coproduction.

Surrey County Cricket Club and Carers Trust have join forces

Lambeth: New young carers card design competition – A young person has won the ‘Lambeth Young Carers Card Design Competition’ run by Brixton based independent charity Carers’ Hub Lambeth.

Cygnet North West Regional Carers Network Event – Blog of Cygnet Carers event.

Bromley Carers Strategy Survey 2023 – Bromley Council is developing its Carers Strategy and want the views and experiences of unpaid carers to inform the content of the strategy.

Carers Trust marks 50 years of caring for carers at special Old Bailey reception – Carers Trust held an event tonight in the Grand Hall of London’s Old Bailey to mark fifty years since the setting up of the UK’s first ever carer organisation

Carers and Hospital Discharge Toolkit for London Hospitals and Community Providers – Toolkit to help providers improve the experience of carers during hospital discharge.

Give feedback on care – CQC – Person you care for using a service? Give feedback here.

Cost of cancer is damaging mental health – A new survey has found that 83% of people with cancer say unexpected expenses since their cancer diagnosis are impacting their mental health.

Kingston University students share insight and tips for Young Carers Action Day

Mental Health foundation – Racism and mental health – Blog about racism and mental health from Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation

March Carer Forum Updates 2023

Welcome to my March update of most of my carer forums. These forums are for those caring for someone with mental illness. The idea of the groups is to allow unpaid carers a chance to find out about mental health services. The forums also allow researchers from universities and hospitals to update carers on current trends affecting carers and mental illness.

Lewisham Mental Health carers forum

For this carers forum we were delighted to have Bobby Pratap from South London and Maudsley NHS attend. Bobby is the Director of Implementation for the borough of Lewisham. This means in laymen’s terms that a large investment I guessing around 100 million will be focused on changes to mental health services in the borough.

With that kind of investment, it is vital for patient, carer and public engagement. Bobby comes with a wealth of experience straight from NHS England’s as the Deputy head of Mental health.

Bobby presented the challenges that mental health services face in the borough of Lewisham. He also presented some feedback from engagement events under South London & Maudsley. Bobby was certainly tested by the members of the forum who grilled him on NHS trust resources.

I also presented the new NHS London Hospital discharge toolkit. Since the Carers UK 2021 report, it has been widely known that unpaid carers feel uninvolved in hospital discharge. Carers complain that they are invisible to the NHS. So NHS London carer leads have come up with a hospital discharge checklist

The benefits to involving carers in hospital discharge are

Some Benefits

Reduced carer strain and breakdown
Patients less likely to re-admitted.
Caring situation is more sustainable
Better health outcomes for both patient and carer
Reduced overall cost to system

With some Accute hospitals taking the lead, there is hope other hospital will become carer friendly and see unpaid carers as part of the team.

The resource can be downloaded from below via Carers Trust Website

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

South west London Mental Health carers forum

This forum is facilitated by myself and Ava who is a mental health and carer campaigner. The forum covers the boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Wandsworth, Richmond and Sutton. As a group focusing on mental health carers, we get support from the carer centres and from local Mind and Rethink organisations.

There was no speakers for the group this month, so I presented the hospital discharge carer toolkit. I also covered updates regarding the Triangle of Care.

Joint Southwark & Lambeth MH carers forum

For this group. Carers had a chance to find out what a Mental Health Solicitor does. We were joined by Burke Niazi Solicitors. The solicitor who represented my late mother had engaged with our group to answer queries, issues and questions. The forum was well attended and even some had attended from my other forums.

We were also joined by Lee Roach who is Lambeth’s carers lead for Maudsley adult services. Lee is also the Head Occupational Therapist for Lambeth Operational Directorate. Lee updated carers from Lambeth on services related to triangle of care. I was also interested in how Southwark carer leads were engaging with carers. It might take a while for them to drop by our group since Guys & St Thomas NHS are due to attend next month to speak about their carer’s strategy.

Lastly the group was joined by Guy Swindle who is the Deputy Director of Lambeth Living Well Network Alliance.

Greenwich Mental Health Carers forum

I only run this group Bi-monthly and Greenwich carers heavily supports the group. We get great support from Oxleas NHS and the Royal Borough of Greenwich often attends when they can. For this group we had engagement from Lisa Moylan who is Oxleas head of Mental Health Legislation.

The main reason I asked for Lisa to engage with the forum is to allow carers to understand what the department does, but also get an idea of how the Law department will deal with the new changes to the Mental Health Act. The MP will also chat with carers about their thoughts about proposed bill.

At the group, I updated members on updates regarding Greenwich Carers Strategy.

Some of the updates were

Raising awareness of caring with local employers
Developing a carers self-assessment app
Research with carers from ethnic communities
Further development of the Mobilise digital platform
Exploring feasibility of a Carers Card

There are plans Greenwich carers partnership board to Engage with local GPs and Engage with hospitals. Talking about hospitals, I also presented the London hospital carers discharge toolkit.

Ethnic Mental Health carers forum

This is the only forum that I run that focuses on carers from ethnic communities. It is also a forum that can actually reach out via several mental health trusts as sometimes we get attendees from SWLSTG, West London Health trust, Kent & Medway and CNWL, but the main focus is what South London & Maudsley or Oxleas are focusing on. The group also engages with speakers from universities and researchers. We also can get updates from the local authority or Healthwatch.

The speaker for March was Natalie Creay who is Founder of Liberating Knowledge, she is also on the advisory board of The Lancet Psychiatry magazine and a trustee of The London Community Foundation.

Yes, she does a lot. Natalie spoke to us regarding health inequalities of Black and Asian people. Her research looked at Closing gaps in patient data for Black and South Asian communities.

Through the focus groups and interviews they conducted with healthcare staff. It was found that

  • Staff were less confident about describing why data is collected or how it is used
  • Staff felt that a lack of people in leadership roles who are committed to tackling bullying, institutional racism and health inequalities
  • Some staff also referred to a concern from Black and South Asian communities about whether they can trust the NHS given past harms
  • There were innovative ideas proposed such as the NHS being more radical in how it thinks about data ownership and giving more control to people and their communities over their data and the insights generated from them.

It was found that The burden of tackling health inequalities rests on people with lived experience.

There were several recommendations regarding the research, some listed below.

  • Create the conditions for systemic change to enable the following recommendations to be delivered by accelerating efforts to eradicate racism within the NHS. This should include developing the cultural and racial capability of the workforce.
  • Consider developing a race equity framework for physical health services that draws on the approach used for the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework in Mental Health services.
  • Secure the support and commitment of senior leaders to improve data practices, embed inequalities work and create space for staff to innovate within the NHS.
  • Actively challenge ‘hard to reach’ narratives that encourage the perception Black, Asian and minoritised communities are disengaged or unwilling to share their patient data.
  • Equip healthcare workers with the tools to hold meaningful conversations about data: explore more innovative approaches that provide engaging ‘bite-size’ learning material targeted at healthcare workers.

This led on to one of our members Brenda who is a member of the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework to report back how Maudsley is using the framework to increase health equality and reduce racism. We also got updates from the Public Health Training and Development Manager for Lewisham who have been working hard to reduce health inequalities within ethnic communities. This was emulated on projects from Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich Mind Updates.

This concludes most of my carer forums for March.

Carers Trust 50 years of caring event

Welcome back to another blog post by carer activist, author and poet Matthew McKenzie. I just thought to do a quick blog about an exciting and important event I attended last night.

Carers Trust a national charity to promotes and supports unpaid carers have reached an important milestone. It was their 50th Anniversary and to celebrate that milestone, the charity held their event over at the Old Bailey.

I have never been to such a pretigous building before and I am still wondering how on earth Carers Trust managed to hold their event there. The event was a drinks reception along with important speeches as to why Carers Trust fights so hard for carers. Do you remember the TV soap drama Crossroads? If you do, then you might remember a particular 1973 Crossroads theme regarding someone caring after a car crash. This led to viewers sending mail about their thoughts and experiences, which in turn led to a national drive on support for unpaid carers.

You can watch a short video below showing the history of Carers Trust

The beginnings of Carers Trust was explained in detail by Angela Rippon CBE who was a guest at the drinks reception. Her lived experience, knowledge and drive to battle for unpaid carers was an inspiration.

The event was hosted by Sheriff Alastair King who opened the event. We also had speeches from chair of Carers Trust John McLean OBE and CEO of Carers Trust Kirsty McHugh. I admit I have never met Kirsty before, but she has lots of energy and dashes around very fast.

At the event I was introduced to those who also championed the role of unpaid carers. Rohati Chapman Exec Director at Carers trust was an excellent host and made me feel welcomed.

The speech by young carer, Aditya Akella was exceptional as he mentioned the themes that are important to young carers. A lot of the themes I often present regarding talks I do about my books. The most important is carers do their role out of Love including other things.

As I wandered around the drink’s reception, I could not help be taken in by the hall. The old Bailey is majestic and historical. The importance of justice, fighting for others and of motto’s etched on the walls require some serious investigation. There is a lot about the place I still do not understand, but reflecting back, the building holds a significant reason as to why people fight so hard for what is important to the community. I am not a barrister, Laywer or Judge, I am just a simple carer activist, but deep down I feel the Old Bailey actually wanted the event to be held there. This goes double to those who take the time to fight for the vulnerable.

I am aware that as a majority we still strive to do what is right, but because some roles are done for free, there are people who feel there is not much value in such roles. A just and civil society should try to value those sacrifices, because in the end it is what sustains the community.

All in all, I enjoyed the drinks reception and I wish Carers Trust success in the future.

World Social Work day 2023

Welcome back to another carers blog by Matthew McKenzie. It recently was World Social Work Day, which took place on the 21st March 2023. The theme for 2023 World Social work day was ‘Respecting diversity through joint social action. Social workers are very important if you are caring for someone. It helps to get that extra support regarding your role as an unpaid carer.

Social workers are becoming a rare resource these days, so it is important to raise awareness of social workers. It is also important to value them. World Social Work day allows social workers worldwide stand together to send the common message of relieving people’s suffering, fight for social justice, and improve lives and communities.

Social works help people with health, psychological or social problems. This in turn builds healthier communities. It was fortunate I was allowed to present at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust World Social work day event.

The event took place at Maudsley’s conference centre “Ortus”

The event organisers used the theme on learning from the voices of service users and carers in mental health social work.

We had some great speakers from that event. A special mention to Jo Lambert and her mental health focus. You can check out her books in the link below.

Recognition Project

I started off my presentation on what I feel was the importance of world social work day. Of course I asked the audience what they thought about the awareness day. I then read a poem from my book “The Poetry book of mental health caring”

You can see my presentation from my video below.

The poem I read was called “My Story”

I then told how my carer’s journey unfolded and how Social workers worked with carer and service user.

How did Social workers helped my role as a carer?

  • I explained to the audience that it was important that social workers are knowledgeable of the services and explained them to my mother and myself.
  • Some social workers saw me as an asset. Some social workers saw me as part of a support network helping to support my mother.
  • It is important social workers use psychology to help heal. Some social workers talked about what can be done, rather than what could not be done, so constantly providing a positive focus.
  • One of the most important roles of a social worker is explaining about carers assessment. The carer’s assessment is an important tool for a carer to learn more about their needs.
  • Lastly referring me on to carer support was invaluable
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All in all the NHS Maudsley gave me a powerful voice to promote my voice as a former mental health carer. I hope awareness of social workers continue to grow

Young Carers Action Day

Welcome back to another blog post by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie. Only a few days until Young Carers Action day 2023, which will be on wednesday 15 of March. Young Carers Action day is an annual awareness and campaign event run by national carer’s charity Carers Trust.

If you are not sure what young carers do. They look after someone in the family unpaid and will have to cook, provide housework and even do shopping. It is not those tasks alone, young carers from the age of 5 can even provide physical care or emotional support. Young carers might even have to advocate for the person they care for or even help communicate for the ‘cared for’.

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If you wish, you can check out my video on Young Carers Action day from my YouTube site below.

With all the tasks mentioned above and more, it makes sense that the theme for YCAD is “Make time for young carers”. It is important young people get the time for themselves since their role can be very demanding and caring for someone often comes with sacrifices. Later in life, people might have a choice in the care they provide, this cannot always be said for young carers who miss out on many opportunities. This could be in making friends with those at school, or missing out on education and skills training. When caring for someone, if you do not get a break then your own wellbeing is at risk.

So it is important young carers have access to breaks and are able to be identified early. When I was young, I did not know I was a young carer, so Young Carers Action Day helps raise awareness to young people who are caring. Once they know they are carers, then it is easier to ask for support and to ask to be identified.

Carers Trust want several things to happen for young carers.

  • improved support in schools
  • more access to breaks,
  • better access to counselling support
  • and more financial support.

If you want to help spread the message, check out Carers Trust resource pack from the link below

Carers Trust YCAD Resource Pack

Review of Kingston – Real Estate Poetry Project

Welcome back to another carer blog by Matthew McKenzie

It has been a while since I did an event review. To be honest I ought to be attending a lot more events, especially things to do with mental health awareness, carer awareness or even book conferences related to my content.

Well you are just in luck, I recently was a special guest poet at the ‘Come Rhyme with me’ series of creative writting workshops. These workshops are hosted by award winning poet Michael Groce. The event was brought together by Voluntary Action Kingston.

There often can be fast paced changes in the community, some positive and some bringing changes which causes people to be isolated. Ethnic communities can often feel isolated, so it helps that there are ways to help people use their voice in ways that are powerful.

I have always found poetry to be powerful. The creative writing workshops are held in the Cambridge Estate over in the London Borough of Kingston. I found at the event all were welcomed and the community in the borough of Kingston are talented and passionate about their experiences.

You can see my poem from the video below.

If you are from the borough of Kingston, you can book on the event below.

Focus Group Recruitment- African-Caribbean older adults

Depression is up to 60% higher in people from ethnic minorities than white people. There is also variation in the healthcare management of mental health conditions according to an individual’s ethnic background. The extent to which variation in access to treatment options for mental health conditions impacts on quality of life is not well understood. Therefore, the aim of the focus group is to explore the perspectives of Afro-Caribbean people with a mental health diagnosis on access and delivery of care.

There is research looking to recruit 10 people of African or Caribbean descent with a mental health diagnosis (and carers of those with a mental health diagnosis (who themselves are Afro-Caribbean)) and are over the age of 50 to explore their perspectives on the care and access they received.

Participants will be involved in a 90-minute online focus group via Microsoft teams and will be reimbursed for their time. See poster below.

The group will be facilitated by Rhian Milton-Cole, a PhD Candidate at King’s College London. During the session she will ask questions relating to the patient’s experience of seeking support for their mental health conditions and any barriers they faced. Rhian will also ask about which treatment options were offered to them and if they found these acceptable and lastly if they believe the care offered to and received by Afro-Caribbean people is the same as the care given to and received by Caucasian people.

If interested please contact

Name: Rhian Milton-Cole
Email: Rhian.1.milton-cole@kcl.ac.uk

North West Regional Carers Network Event

Welcome fellow carers and readers. Aren’t you lucky today? I am publishing 2 blogs in one day. To be honest I was mean’t to publish 4, but I ought to get some rest. Lots of meetings tomorrow.

Due to being passionate about carers and passionate about a carer’s network. I was fortunate to be invited to speak at Cygnet Healthcarer’s carers network event. The event took place at Cygnet Hospital Bury.

Cygnet Healthcare look to provide the best service for their clients and this includes those who provide care. There is always lots of work to do, but they keep striving.

The event was called “North West Regional Carers Network Event”. Cygnet Healthcare have many locations, so it was brilliant to talk to professinals and carers about the importance of carers and the importance of a carers network.

I was also joined by another Carer who spoke on the day. Lesley Mellor who is the chair of Dorset Parent Carer council. She has an amazing personality and is an expert by experience regarding care and the importance of including carers. Laura Sheridan who is Group Service Improvement Manager for Cygnet Healthcare looked after us well.

We stayed at Premier Inn hotal which provided excellent service and lovely food. I am impressed by Laura’s dedication and philosophy for quality service and inclusion.

I was honoured to open the event and as usual due to my latest project on carer poetry, I read poem number 27. The poem was called “The Carer’s Network”, although to be fair I was struggling to choose which poem to read.

During the event, I spoke about my carer’s journey, the importance of carer’s being included and involved the audience in a quiz. Both Carer’s and professionals were knowledgable in their fields and were always honest and friendly.

We also had the following speakers

Vicky McNally – Director of Partnership and Engagement, Cygnet Health Care who spoke about the progress Cygnet Healthcare has made so far and the plans for the future.

Kate Mercer – Family Advocate, Black Belt Advocacy. Kate spoke about the importance of advocacy and educated us what rights carers have.

Sharon Spurling – Head of Network Development, Carers Trust spoke about the importance of Triangle of care and how Cygnet Health care are implimenting the triangle of care across their sites.

Overall, I enjoyed the day and enjoyed mingling with the speakers. I think I might have ate too much and doozed off, but that was my own fault. Looking forward to more conferences.