Tag Archives: lewisham carers

Lewisham MH Carers forum September 2018 update

133This is the last of the four MH carer forum update for September. This one runs from carers Lewisham, the Carers Centre is run by and for carers: many of their staff, trustees and volunteers are or have been carers.

The carers Centre provides information, support and advocacy for carers for the borough of Lewisham. You were hoping to have the head of social care for Adult Mental Health attend the forum, but she was unable to make it due to being unwell. The forum members are interested in her role and how it impacts on families and carers.

So instead we discussed the SLaM carers strategy and how that impacts on families and carers throughout the community.

However before I presented the current mental Health Trust carers strategy, I fed back the recent updates requested by the mental health carers forum. We are looking forward to Dr Torstein Stapley the Psychologist with Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma attending in October. Plus we hope Michael McHugh the Psychiatric Liaison Nurse from Lewisham A+E Hospital attends in November.

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Other updates included that the forum agreed that it would be good for GP’s to know more about how to support MH carers. Unfortunately, SLaM does not have funding to reprint their Carers handbook and couldn’t prioritise doing this in numbers that would cover all GP practices. The SLaM Patient Information Manager suggested that SLaM ask Lewisham Clinical Commissioning Group to put an item in their GP newsletter.

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The Lewisham MH Carer forum members are interested to see the Lewisham CCG GP newsletter.

After some discussions I presented the forum about our Local Mental Health trusts Carers Strategy. We looked at the following.

  1. A Birds eye view of the document.
  2. Carer governor statement from the strategy.
  3. The Chief Exec’s Summary.
  4. SLaM’s Definition of a carer.
  5. Principles for Practice and what it means.
  6. Triangle of Care and what that means.
  7. Family & Carer recognition.
  8. Carers Assessments and its implications.
  9. Carer Involvement.
  10. Informing families and carers.
  11. Supporting Families and carers.
  12. How staff are developed to work with carers.
  13. Working in partnership with community groups.
  14. Carers Charter.

It was a disappointment that only one of the forum members heard about the trust’s carers strategy and had mentioned that the forum should hold the trust to account on its carers strategy, because in the end it affects not just carers, but ourselves.

After the forum, some members mentioned they were to attend the carers support group that evening to discuss their own personal caring situations. This concludes the update for the Lewisham MH Carers forum for September

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Lewisham MH Carers forum August 2018 update

IMG_20180828_141300Hello everyone, welcome to the latest update from the Lewisham mental health carers forum, which took place on August the 28th carers Lewisham. I know I have missed a few updates regarding the other forums that took place in July, I am hoping to add those at a later date.

As a quick reminder, the MH carers forums give a chance for carers to get updates, engagement, empowerment and also query NHS services and policies. We had some good attendance for the latest lewisham carers forum.

The forum usually runs for 2 hours, however so much was discussed at this particular forum we actually overran. I gave updates from our local mental health trust, which is South London and Maudsley. The NHS Trust has been really good in engaging with carers forums from the Boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Croydon and Lewisham.

As a forum we are excited to have future guest invites from lewisham hospital in regards to how they engage with mental patients at A&E. We are also excited to have the attendance of the social care lead in the coming months. We also hope to get engagement from the director of carers Trust. The forum has achieved a lot over the past 2 and a half years.

As a forum we were glad to hear how the modern matron in charge of carer engagement feedback how the trust aims to look into the Triangle of care. We are also hoping that a new care support group start up at the inpatient unit soon. As a forum, the members were very impressed with the director of Lewisham mental health services attending and engaging with some exciting ideas and projects.

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For this month, we were very lucky to have Lewisham CCG engagement officer attending and listening to a lot of the members feedback and updates. The engagement officer told us about her role and the role of lewisham CCG, we got updates about some new projects and the importance of patient participation groups at doctors surgeries. As a forum we discussed NHS service provision, however a lot of questions should be saved for the Lewisham CCG AGM.

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The CCG engagement officer educated and updated us on the recent health promotion projects in the borough of Lewisham. The engagement officer was well aware of my activities in the borough of Lambeth and Southwark and felt that we can learn from what they are doing over there and vice a versa.

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I updated members that the NHS trust mental health act officer is due to appear this Thursday at the BME MH carers forum, plus members are interested on updates regarding the trusts carers strategy, however there is a strong feeling that the carers strategy must encompass local engagement rather than being too heavily trustwide focused.

I also updated members that SLaM are looking to discuss the Carers Strategy, plus that their AGM is coming up.  We are interested on who will win staff awards.

As usual many of the members feedback on what they are doing in regards to carer empowerment projects. Members of Keen to have a local carers listening event, however we are wondering about promotion and networking.

We look forward to more engagement from Lewisham CCG and also Lewisham Healthwatch, but importantly from a local NHS Mental Health Trust and Lewisham hospital.

Mental Health Carers Forum – March 2017

Mental Health Open Forum

Welcome to another blog post from a carer in south London. Just a quick update, one of the projects I am interesting in helping to run is to be involved and help chair carer forums. I am hoping to write a blog at a later date regarding the importance of carer forums, but for now, this blog post is an update from the Carers Lewisham Mental Health Carer forum.

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