Tag Archives: mental health

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.

I was privileged to be shown how so many advocacy groups helped in their own cause from Dragon Cafe over in Southwark, to CoolTan Arts which was based also in Southwark. It was great to see Michelle Barrier’s work who was the CEO of cooltan sometime ago. We also had contributions from HearUs Croydon, speak out against psychiatry, Service User Involvement in Training and Education, Dolly Sen and many more.

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On that Saturday when the exhibition first opened to the public, I wandered around the Bethlem Gallery to see many of the exhibits and reflected on how those advocacy groups have made a difference to patients lives. Also on the day was a talk from Nathan Filer author of the books The Shock of the Fall.

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Nathan was there to talk about his new book The HeartLand, which from his website is a collection of personal stories and essays about madness and its meanings. His talk was on how he used to work in a hospital, which led him to become more involved in mental health nursing. Many of the questions from the audience were challenging and well thought out.

You can find out more about Nathan Filer from his website

https://www.nathanfiler.co.uk/

I then visited the rest of he museum which had an impressive display of the history of the Maudsley and about Bedlem. I event visited the boardroom. which showed the picture of Queen Mary who visited one of the wards around 1930. Queen Mary eventually became the President of Bethlem.

You can find out more about the boardroom in the museum below.

https://museumofthemind.org.uk/blog/just-visiting-queen-mary

The rest of the day I spent going through the sections and displays from advocacy groups, I am sorry if I missed any since there was so many. As mentioned, I feel that patients can have a very difficult time getting their voice heard. Even when unwell, it is so important that some have the strength to form a group or network and try to have that voice. There are problems with psychology and psychiatry, especially with medications and policies from the government. Some of those things are just a small reason why the service user advocacy groups have formed and need to stay in place.

Some groups help to support the mental health system, while others are against. Some advocacy groups help to untangle the maze of the mental health system, while other advocacy groups work towards creativity and expression. The history of advocacy groups is very rich and I feel this is just a start of the celebration of service user voices and protests.

I was also glad to chip into the exhibition due to my involvement with Service User Involvement In Training and Education (SUITE), basically SUITE allows patients and unpaid carers to have the power to be involved in training NHS staff, develop courses and educate others on their experiences. The Museum kindly took my views and included me along with other members of SUITE in a video exhibition.

I have also noticed that on the day, some NHS staff from South London and Maudsley took time off their weekend to visit the exhibition including the Chief Operating Officer.

I would like to thank the organisers and the Bethlem Museum and Bethlem Gallery for including service users and carers in the rich history of mental health.

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The exhibition runs from 7 September 2019 to the 4 January 2020

Thanks for stopping by.

Lambeth MH Carers Forum update August 2019

Welcome to the August update of the Lambeth Mental Health Carers forum. As a reminder the Mental Health carers forums are not primarily focused on discussing mental health benefits, but are aimed at carers supporting those with mental health needs. The forum usually has organisation who either provide mental health services, commission them or oversee the services e.g. Lambeth Council, South London & Maudsley, Lambeth CCG and Lambeth healthwatch besides others.

For the August forum we were fortunate to members and representatives from Maudsleys Older Adults and Dementia Advisory group. They presented to the forum what the group does over at South London & Maudsley and how they work with unpaid carers who are caring for those suffering Dementia, Alzheimers, Parkinson and so forth.

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Before I continue on with a brief update of the work of the older adults Clinical Academic Group, we also had on the August agenda the following.

I updated the member of the mental health Act debate, which focused on the reform of the mental health act and any pressing issues the government needs to take account of.

The debate was led by MP Neil Coyle Labour of Bermondsey and Old Southwark. One of the forums I hold being at Southwark Carers was invited to view the debate, but unfortunately many of the carers could not attend, so it ended up being the members of the Carers Lewisham forum who have visited parliment before.

I did actually update the members of the Southwark Carers forum the next day, particularly one of the Service user SLaM governors who was interested in attending, but most members are not sure what is to happen next. The Lambeth members are pleased to hear that Helen Hayes can attend in a joint Southwark and Lambeth MH carers forum around November.

Going back to the parliament debate, the following MPs took part in the Mental Health Act reform debate.

Nick Thomas-Symonds Shadow Solicitor General, Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)
Janet Daby Labour, Lewisham East
Kevan Jones Labour, North Durham
Debbie Abrahams Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth
Julian Lewis Chair, Defence Committee
Kerry McCarthy Labour, Bristol East
Johnny Mercer Conservative, Plymouth, Moor View
Steve Reed Shadow Minister (Education) (Children and Families)
Alex Cunningham Labour, Stockton North
Barbara Keeley Shadow Minister (Mental Health and Social Care)
Jackie Doyle-Price The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

Many members of the forums are interested in any more updates regarding the mental health act, because obviously whatever the government decides will affect families and unpaid carers supporting their close relatives who have mental health needs.

I also updated the Lambeth Forum on updates regarding the other forums I hold.

Being the following.

Southwark Carers

– Will have an NHS Serious incident investigator in doing a talk tomorrow at Southwark carers from 4 pm. She is a carer herself and could not make last month, but hope she attends tomorrow as she emailed me stating she is available
– I have also emailed Southwark council to attend again updating on their new carers group and any knowledge of the refresh of Southwark’s carers strategy. Southwark council now has a new project manager for the carers strategy.
– Southwark healthwatch are querying each of the 3 NHS trusts (kings, SLaM and G&STT) on their carers strategies and will update the forum

Carers Lewisham

– I have arranged for the past information manager and counselor to do a session next week about the importance of therapy. She is a member of the BACP – British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Which has made me aware of the lack of counselling and therapy for carers and service users.
– I have also arranged for SLaM quality improvement to engage with members for that day, and hope Aaron Brewer who is Quality Improvement Facilitator to attend or send someone else to attend to see who SLaM is doing on their quality improvement.
– I will update the Lewisham forum on the meeting I had with representatives from Lewisham council, Lewisham CCG and Lewisham carers chief exec on a bid we are making to build a Carers Lewisham ‘carers academy’. This bid goes to the governments carers innovation bid scheme and if successful we can train carers on several important aspects at the academy.

Lewisham BAME carers forum at Bromley Lewisham and Greenwich Mind

– I have arranged for the PPG chair of the largest doctors surgery in lewisha, to come in and educate the members about PPGs and carer focus at doctors surgeries. She might speak about the Lewisham PPG network.
– I have also arranged with the help from SLaM for a social worker Errol Chambers from the Lewisham Hospital MH unit to speak to members about his role.
– I will update the members on Lewisham putting together a carers conference raised when my MP Janet Daby attended earlier this year. One of the members spoke to Lewisham on how the conference should look like.
– I will probably also update the proposal from the Lewisham Senior commissioner CCG Karin Barthel on planning the Lewishams CCG stakeholder event.

As you can see as a carer I am busy querying lots of updates.

Going back to the Lambeth forum. The older adults advisory group works through the Psychological Medicine and Mental Health of Older Adults and Dementia Operations Directorate (PMOA). On the group are Service Users and Carers Advisory Group (SUCAG) members, over the years they have made many achievements one being project ‘If Only I’d Known’ where they seek to educate unpaid carers regarding for caring for older adults with dementia.

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The Academic group has been involved in contributing to SLaM’s End of Life Pathway, helping in selection and recruiting of staff. Plus having helping and being involved in research at Kings College London. The group have been busy engaging with SLaM’s inpatient wards especially focusing on families and carers there who are unsure of their role.

Royal College of Nursing involvement day

Thanks for stopping by. Here is another blog post by unpaid carer Matthew Mckenzie. This blog post is about involvement, but I have added to this post my involvement with another organisation the Royal College of Nursing. Usually I spend most my time at carer or community centres running family and carer strategy forums. We aim to engage with hospital trusts, healthwatch, health commissioners and councils. Most forums look to increase education and engagement on mental health and the health services.

Still, education is not enough and there should be involvement and empowerment for services users and carers. Anyway, I would like to put a bit of background into the RCN otherwise known as Royal college of Nursing. I have been hinting about nursing and the Royal college of Nursing from my previous blog posts, although there are many other organisations I will post about soon.

The RCN represents nurses and nursing, promotes excellence in practice and shapes health policies. It is the biggest and well known union for nursing in the UK. They do not just represent nurses, but also midwives, Mental Health nurses, health care assistants, assistant practitioners, student nurses and trainee nursing associates.

They have around half a million members and are growing in number every day. The RCN also have a vast history in the field of nursing and have made major impacts in advocating for the field of nursing in the UK. The RCN also runs forums, consultations, conferences and allows members to get involved or even become an RCN Rep.

It has not been an easy time for nurses or the NHS at present, I am not going to get too political today, but never has there been a greater need for the RCN to vouch for nursing as pressure is brought to bear on nurses via lack of funds, bursaries and incentives to stay in the industry.

The RCN now wishes to expand its involvement and has been honest that in its prestigious history, it has lacked the drive to engage with its mental health patients, however many a large organisation can fall into this situation, although some are worse than others.

I have noticed that the RCN looks to take on engagement and involvement policies regarding its mental health programme, but to do this it must feed into its patient forum and also draw from Triangle of Care representatives. Of course no one is going to say such a drive is not without its challenges, but the sooner work begins on involvement, then the better the outcome.

Early this august I was invited to the first of many reference groups to collectively figure out inclusion and co-production within the RCN. I was joined by many patients and carers like myself. I did hear that reps from a mental health forum could not make it, but hope they are free next time.

The group was chaired and facilitated by both Catherine Gamble and Tim Coupland. Catherine is a RCN Mental health lead & Head of Nursing. She is also proactive in eduction practice & research at South West London and ST Georges NHS Trust. Tim Coupland is the RCN Programme Lead for Parity of Esteem and promotes many policies on mental wellness for all including nurses themselves.

I will not go into too much detail on how the group went, but I felt I was very looked after at the group and I felt everyone got their chance to have their say. We had many passionate and rich experiences from the members of the group, everyone truly deserved their place there. I was amazed that some members have had an impact promoting nursing and service user experience in other countries.

We each also asked what our involvement and interests lie, where mine was on the NHS Long term plan, mental health act and Suicide prevention due to my involvement at South London and Maudsley Suicide prevention group. I was excited to hear that the RCN have representatives engaging in the areas I have raised.

There is however a lot I can say regarding involvement, inclusion, engagement, co-design and co-production, but I think I will leave that to another blog post. There is much out there that carers like myself can get involved with. We never have enough carers getting involved at an exciting and challenging time in the health services.

You can find out more about the Royal College of Nursing from the link below

https://www.rcn.org.uk/

My summing up of the day is that there is a lot of work to do, but I feel that the RCN as a body is massive and offers many opportunities even if it is just to understand its core principles and the future of nursing.

Carers and GP Surgeries

me_edited-1 Welcome back to another blog post by unpaid Mental Health carer Matthew Mckenzie. I often write blog posts that try to focus on carer issues, but sometimes I stray into areas of mental health, events and the field of psychology, sociology and maybe psychiatry. Of course I don’t stop there. I run carer engagement/strategy forums in south London and every so often I tend to update how they went on this site. Feel free to check out my Youtube channel or twitter channels where one channel focuses on the carer experience and the other channel on mental health developments.

Enough with the shameless advertising, this particular post is on a much needed subject and it is aimed at unpaid carers, however I hope GP surgeries get the time to read considering at the last Lambeth forum there was major discussion on the Lambeth Patient Participation group network. I have also arranged for the Lewisham PPG chair of South Lewisham Practice to present and update the members of Lewisham BAME Carers forum.

But what if you are a carer and are dithering on visiting your GP or doctor regarding who you care for, or even yourself?

Young couple gets counseled by a doctor

My first advice is not to dither or wait it out. Vising your GP can help make major decisions easier. There are very good reasons why it is so important to visit your GP and one of them is if you are feeling unwell. Most carers tend to visit their doctor due to raising issues on their ‘loved one’s’ health.

Still if you think the person you are looking after might recover, then it is still a good idea to check up with your GP. Some chance is better than none at all.

Whats the risk in putting it off?

I bet if I was to look for some stats, then it would be horrifying. Too many people across the country tend to delay or put off from visiting their GP, males can be the worst offenders and then things get too late to be detected. Carers, especially those caring for someone with a mental health need, should be more cautious. The reason usually is that if someone suffering mental illness, it can be very hard to let others know of physical health problems as well. Families and carers need that professional advice to help come to a decision to get access to other health services.

GP as Gatekeeper

It is well known that a doctor is the gatekeeper to other services. Without referral to other services then recovery or support is that much harder for the patient.

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Many might be still waiting for access to their mental health trust, while some might be trying to access psychological therapies, although it has been made self referral. GPs should know where to send patients or carers if they are in need of specialist support.

Continue reading →

Lewisham BME MH Carer/SU Forum July Update 2019

965946_fa217b70 Welcome to the July 2019 update of the Lewisham BAME Mental Health carer forum. The forum is one of the 4 carer strategy forums I run in the community and has a focus on BAME carers and sometimes Service user issues. As a reminder, the London borough of Lewisham is a diverse community, with many health and wellbeing challanges, but also some successes.

Although it is good we have carer support groups, there must be a physical platform where families and unpaid carers can come together for empowerment purposes. Carers should have a right to have a say about Health and well-being services. For the July Lewisham BAME Carers mental health forum, I had to run it earlier in the month due to a meeting I have at the end of the month.

Usually the forum would be packed, but a lot of members had sent apologies and this is one of the reasons I have blogged about the forum as a way to report back to members who can then feed into their networks.

Lewisham Police Mental Health Engagement

We were joined by Matthew Burns from the Metropolitan Police covering 3 London Boroughs. I believe there can be tension in the community with the police, especially with BAME patients who are not often happy to be brought in for treatment. It was a great opportunity for the community and the police to come together and learn from each other. I feel to have a police officer spend time to engage with us will lead to a great community focus.

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Matt mentioned there were a lot of things the police need to work on, especially on looking to reduce section 136 and section 135 across several south London boroughs. The police are funding officers for the mental health wards where Bexley House from Oxleas MH Trust and Ladywell Unit from SLaM MH Trust were mentioned. The police are under a lot of pressure on dealing with patients in crisis out in the community and one of their aims is to build relationships with the community of Greenwich, Bexley and Lewisham.

The police mental health engagement drive is to know and understand the services and groups that can help with mental well-being. During the question and answer session, there was talk about mental health and diversity training, which Matt will take back. One other important note, was during the forum we were joined by Lewisham CCG.

Matt mentioned the police are trying very hard with patients in a crisis but are not fond of enforcing sections unless it is absolutely necessary. Matt stated that the Crisis Cafe in the borough of Bexley took so much pressure off the police and felt we need something similar in Lewisham. Matt is very aware of the Crisis Cafe (Habour Cafe) at Lewisham hospital, but feels despite the great work the cafe does, that its service is still restrictive and the model must be more like Bexley to take the pressure off. The police are looking for certain services that can help patients their families and themselves, especially deescalation services, rather than sections. There should be a serious discussion on the crisis cafes and a few other things.

There was more talk about the lack community resources from the members, plus discussions about peer groups and appropriate adults. In the end I felt we had learned a lot from Matt and felt reassured that we were working to tackling mental health and BAME challenges in the borough.

NHS Long Term Plan

Next up for the July Lewisham BAME carers/SU forum. We had Lewisham CCG engagement presenting the NHS Long term plan. We were made aware that 6 CCGs (Bromley CCG, Lewisham CCG, Bexley CCG, Lambeth CCG, Southwark CCG and Greenwich CCG) are merging and the date is for 1st of April 2020. There was a discussion about the Lewisham alliance and how many borough alliances need to be brought forward. There was a discussion on how the Long term plan would affect GP practices and how GP surgeries are not aligned to Lewisham’s neighbourhood structure, members of the group were wondering about the impact.

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There will be another Lewisham NHS long term plan event on Tuesday 16th of July at Laurence House. The event details are below.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/help-us-to-shape-the-future-of-the-nhs-in-lewisham-and-south-east-london-tickets-63638911698?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Please also view the video on the NHS Long term plan

Going back to the forum, it was presented that the plan will develop Partnerships on integrating health, social care and providers within the 6 boroughs.

Plus it was presented on how a place based board in each of the 6 boroughs will work.

At these based boards, the members will consist of

A director – who is accountable to the local authority and CCG
Several GPs – working with other CCG GP members
Healthwatch Representation
A lay member as what we have with current CCG meetings
A Director of Public Health
Local authority officers

It was noted that the Carer forums will request engagement from those driving the NHS Long term plan and continued engagement from members of Placed boards.

Below is a timeline of part of the Long term Plan, but I am wondering if the timeline is flexible.

March 2019:

Governing Bodies agreed to develop proposals to create one south east London CCG as a step towards becoming an Integrated Care System (ICS).

March to May:

Inform stakeholder, staff and partners and get their views, which the carer forums are also interested in.

May to July:

Share and discuss our plans with patients and the public

September:

Proposals to merge considered by Governing Bodies
Application made to merge the south east London CCGs

April 2020:

Establish a single CCG with placed based boards in each part of south east London

As the forum chair, I was pleased with the engagement from Lewisham CCG who will be back again at the Lewisham MH carers forum, which I hold at Carers Lewisham. I am wondering if the other CCGs engage with families and carers the same way, although I have had good results with Lambeth CCG and Southwark CCG,

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The last part of the forum was me updating the carer group on the funding initiatives for carers, which Lewisham council can bid for. Some of the members gave their ideas to Lewisham CCG.

The next Lewisham BAME MH will probably run at Mind Greenwich, Lewisham and Bromely in August. I want to remind members of the BAME MH carer forum to update their networks.

National MH Nurses director forum – Building Resilience

D_BbtpdXYAEqkWd Thanks for stopping by my blog-site. I thought to try and note down a lovely conference I was involved in as a guest speaker, but before I begin explaining more about the National directors nurses forum 2019. I want to pitch some ideas for any unpaid carer reading this blog post. Have you ever wondered what inspires team leaders on hospital wards? Have you wondered about how senior nurses inspire their staff? What makes nurses tick and how do they become more resilient in there roles?

As carers, I often try and get families and carers to become excited about the NHS. If not that, then try to inquire what the NHS is doing for you or what you can help the NHS in regards to promotion and co-production. We carers are unique in our roles and sometimes we stay silent and get on with it, but we should try use our voices to influence health services.

About the National MH Nurses director forum

I now want to talk about the forum which runs each year, I think the one for 2019 was the fourth of its kind. The NMHND forum aims to focus on leadership for mental health and learning disability nursing. It also wants to help spread best practice in mental health and learning disability nursing. It helps bring together those who work in the field of nursing to help raise the voices in regards to the pressures of nursing.

You can find out more about the National Mental Health Directors Forum (NMHND) off their site shown below.

https://mhforum.org.uk/

Plus you can find out about Directors of Nursing for the UK through the forum site.

https://mhforum.org.uk/trust-breakdown

The 2019 National MH Nurses Directors forum was held at Warwick University. I was impressed by the conference center and the facilities, which also had a bar, large canteen and many conference rooms. I was told Warwick University had many conference centers and as a carer guest speaker, I felt I was really spoilt since I was provided a room at the center, the Dinner, Breakfast and lunch was fantastic.

The theme of the 2019 NMHND forum was on “Building Resilience”, which was fitting due to the pressures the NHS is under. Plus if the NHS is facing large challenges, it will filter down from leaders, to senior staff and front line staff and guess what? The patient and carer will be next in line. So I was glad that the National MH Nurses forum raised the theme, but it was not moaning and groaning, we sought to find answers, solutions and inspirations into building resiliance. We do not want nurses to struggle and leave the profession.

About the Forum Chair and Organisers

To open the event we had Mel Coombs who is the Director of Nursing at Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. I felt comfortable with her chairing style and that put me at ease as I felt welcomed. I was fascinated by her inspirational story into the role of Nursing and felt she was ever so dedicated in her field, but more on that later.

You can find out more about Cambridge and Peterborough NHS trust and their board of directors below.

https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/about-us/board-of-directors.htm

I was also welcomed by Professor Hilary McCallion CBE and was shocked that she remembered me from when I spoke at South London and Maudsley carer conference almost 6 years ago.

If it was not for Hilary, I doubt I would be speaking at the Nurses forum that day and thank her for involving me at such a level. Prof Hilary is the Director of Nursing and Lead Nurses National forum, plus she is also a Trustee of Dementia UK and Bethlem Museum of the Mind, which I aim to get involved on Bethlem museum latest project soon, watch this space.

Last but certainly not least was Peter Hasler who I have known for a very long time and has inspired me to get involved at South London and Maudsley as a carer when I first started out learning more about the NHS. Peter has many roles, but he is the Forum Development Officer.

What happened throughout the day

After the welcome by the chair, I spoke about resilience as a Carer and the impact of mental health needs in the family. I spoke passionately and from the heart as I wish to lead by example when I want to raise the profile of families & carers in the NHS.

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My talk consisted of the importance of Carers being empowered to network
My background and the Triangle of Care, plus the Health Service Journal.
Carers Navigating the NHS
The need for support from nurses and also resilience of carers.

I hope my message was inspirational and I felt those who work within the NHS have families and patients in mind. I want to inspire nurses to join and avoid leaving the profession, especially in the mental health field, which is very challenging.

We then had Ruth May who Chief Nurse of NHS England speaking about “Nursing Resilience in delivering the NHS Long Term Plan”. I am looking forward to hearing more on how she can help educate us on the NHS Long term plan. She answered many challenging questions from the audience and I noticed she has her work cut out, but her passion and drive shows that she will make great progress.

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After the break Prof Hilary McCallion spoke about patient Observations on inpatient wards. As a carer, her talk was easy to understand and there was an interest in psychiatry as she provided many insights as to why patient observations in hospital mental health wards was so important.

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I admired her knowledge and energy and I felt jealous when someone in the audience got her the questions correct and won a box of chocolates.

After the lecture the forum split up into 3 work-group sessions. The first session was presented by Learning disability nurses Simon Jones and Alison Williamson from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust on PBS in Forensic Services.

You can find out more about Oxford NHS Trust below

https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/

The second Session was on Stepping Up via Resilience through the CQC, which was presentation by Amanda Griffiths and Jane Fullard from the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Trust, which recently got an Outstanding ranking from the CQC on their mental health services.

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This was the session I joined, probably due to the CQC paying even more attention to the Triangle of Care and being active on twitter, plus engaging with my Carer strategy forums. Amanda and Jane spent a lot of time education myself and other trusts in the room, which an impressive presentation. As a side note, I met nurse from SLaM based in Lewisham who spoke kindly about my presentation. I was glad we had more SLaM staff at the forum and hope they will also continue to engage with the carer forums.

You can find out more about Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Trust below

https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/

The third and final session was on How do mental health practitioners understand & experience resilience which was presented by Simon Wharne of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. I have nothing but admiration for Sussex staff and their CEO Sam Allen who has supported my work for quite while and they are heavy advocates of Triangle of Care. I will never forget Sussex involving me as a carer at their event a while ago.

You can find more about Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

https://www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/

After a tasty lunch at the conference center, I got the feeliing at ate too much and it made me sleepy, but I couldnt help myself as I networked with NHS staff from other trusts. There are going to be some exciting projects coming up soon.

The forum moved on to Resilience in your NHS Career Journey, were we got to hear personal stories from Mel Coombs, Christine Hutchinson who is the Nurse on Learning Disability at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust and Francis Adzinku who is the Service Delivery Director at Oxleas NHS Foundation trust.

You can find out more about Lancashire and Oxleas below.

https://www.lancashirecare.nhs.uk/

http://oxleas.nhs.uk/

I would like to give Special thanks to Warwick university and Radcliff conference center as I found the food, facilities and guest room excellent.

How I felt about the event.

I was delighted to be invited to participate in such an influencial nursing forum. If I did not blog on such a forum, it really would have been a missed opertunity. I felt the event was very well organised and kept to time.

I enjoyed the art work of the event done by Dr Pen Mendonca. The art really summed up the day as words cannot always be the best representation of describing things.

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I hope to meet up again with Prof Hilary McCallion again over at SLaM and most of all I was impressed by the caring attitude of the audience making me feel welcomed as a carer among friends.

I would like to mention Lookout for my next blog which will be a video timeline of UK nursing throughout the ages.

Thank you for reading.

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Health and well-being in the community

I recently came back from an event held by an award winning social consultancy called “We Coproduce”. The event was a 2 day look at Trauma and its causes due to the tragady of Grenfell Tower, it was one of the best times for the community over in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. When I arrived at the event, I was amazed to see how many of the public turned up and how many were interested in the talks.