Tag Archives: mental health

Joint Southwark & Lambeth MH Carers forum February 2021

Welcome to february’s Southwark & Lambeth MH carers forum update. This forum is aimed at those who care for someone with a mental illness. The forum gives families and carers a chance to understand the complexities of mental health and social care services.

For February, we had the following speakers who were kind enough to have a chance and engage with carers, even if it ended up as a friendly debate. Although the forum represents Lambeth & Southwark carers, membership is open to many carers outside those boroughs, because I feel carers should network, connect and learn from each other.

The following speakers for February were.

  • Lee Roach who is the SLaM’s Occupational Therapist and carer lead for Lambeth inpatient wards
  • Rebecca Martland who is a PhD Researcher and Physio engaging with carers on the High intensity treatment exercise
  • Sam McGavin & Sophia Stevens from Southwark Council developing Southwark’s carers partnership
  • Annette Davies who is a carer working towards developing stronger networks to carers including a BAME carer group.
Continue reading →

Lewisham BAME MH Carer Forum January 2021

Welcome to the first January Lewisham BAME carer forum for 2021. The BAME carer forum is one of the 6 carer forums I run once a month. The carer forum runs online to adhere to covid-19 restrictions and allows members to attend a lot more easily.

The BAME Mental Health carer forum is aimed at BAME carers who are caring for someone with a mental illness, especially for someone using the services of South London & Maudsley, although I am not super strict who attends the forum since carers from other forums and boroughs often attend.

On the January agenda were the following.

  • NHS England presenting on their National Patient Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF)
  • SLaM presenting on their Local drives for PCREF
  • SLaM older adults diversity drive

We were joined by Staff from Oxleas as well as Manchester NHS Trust who are also seeking to engage and improve services for the BAME community.

Continue reading →

The Fircroft Trust urgent appeal

The Fircroft Trust are devastated to have been informed by RBK, without consultation or notice, to vacate our beloved Mental Health Resource Centre on Ditton Road.

The Fircroft Trust has leased this building for over 40 years and provide a haven for over 75 people who have varying degrees of mental health challenges. At a time when there is a national crisis in mental health, withdrawing this essential support system, which has not only been shown to improve quality of life for the individuals who accessed it, but also reduce hospital admissions and suicide rates, has been devastating for our local community.

The Fircroft Trust has worked hard to minimise the impact of the pandemic on the people who rely on their service and have continued to support the community by maintaining daily contact with their most vulnerable service-users, either via telephone, outside group activities or ‘COVID-friendly’ garden work and meet-ups. However, the impact of the pandemic has meant The Fircroft Trust faced increasing demands for their service from vulnerable members of our community. This is something The Fircroft Trust can’t ignore and they urgently need your help.

How you can help

Services needed by our community:

The Fircroft Trust are urgently seeking new premises in the Chessington, Surbiton or Tolworth area that would be suitable for us to resume the face-to-face support services that is so missed by our service users.

If you can help, or know of a local building, please contact Kay Harris on the details below.  Please share this with your network and help us to continue supporting the people in our community who need us most.

The Fircroft Trust

Tel:         07885 771571

Email:     office@thefircrofttrust.org

http://www.thefircrofttrust.org

Black Thrive Employment Project: improving outcomes for Lambeth residents with long-term conditions

Black Thrive is a partnership between communities, statutory bodies, voluntary organisations and the private sector. We work together to reduce the inequalities and injustices experienced by Black people in Lambeth.

According to the GSTC “One to Many” report, more than 1 in 5 residents in Lambeth live with at least one long-term condition. Over 19,000 live with multiple long-term conditions (three or more). Even though Black communities make up 18% of Lambeth’s adult population, they account for 27% of people with multiple long-term conditions. Furthermore,

in Lambeth, Black residents are four times more likely to be unemployed than white residents. When they are employed, they are disproportionately engaged in insecure, low-paid and dangerous work, which harms mental and physical health. In addition, Black people can face racism and discrimination in the workplace, which negatively impacts mental well-being.

Therefore, we know that people of African and African Caribbean descent in Lambeth are more likely to be unemployed and more likely to have poor health. One of the key drivers of these inequalities is structural racism and the fact that our current healthcare and employment systems prevent Black people from thriving.

As a result, in collaboration with Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Charity (GSTC), Black Thrive’s Employment Project is developing community-led solutions for improving employment outcomes for Black people with long-term conditions. Our goal is to ensure that Black people in Lambeth with long-term conditions are as likely to be in and sustain, meaningful employment as equivalent white people.

To do this, Black Thrive is partnering with community members, statutory bodies and local organisations to achieve justice for the Black community through radical systems change. In September 2020, we launched our £300,000 grant fund to pilot projects that consider the lived experience of Black people with long-term conditions and have the potential to create systemic change. Projects should test and pilot new ideas that have the potential to shift the dial on employment outcomes and improve the evidence base around what works for Black people in Lambeth with long-term conditions.

The fund was managed and distributed by our Employment Working Group; a group of local Black residents with lived experience of managing one or multiple long-term conditions. We believe that prioritising community-power and lived experience is a radical way of funding new and exciting initiatives that may be overlooked by the traditional system. After receiving 84 applications, the Employment Working Group decided to fund 8 projects – the vast majority of which are led by Black and disabled people.

Funded projects include a radical self-care and wellness to work programme, the creation of a network of Black social entrepreneurs, supporting those recovering from mental illness and substance addiction back into employment through dog day-care traineeships and empowering Black people to develop employability skills through social action. To read more about all 8 projects please visit: https://employment.blackthrive.org.uk/our-grantees/

As the projects begin recruiting participants, it is important we ensure that the opportunities available reach the most marginalised people. This is a form of systems change in itself, as it will allow those people who fall outside of traditional referral pathways for services to still access support. 

Given that carers have an intimate and trusting relationship with their loved ones based on an acute understanding of their needs, interests and goals, they are a vital network which cannot be overlooked! We strongly encourage all Lambeth-based Black carers to review the projects on offer, share them widely within your networks and follow the sign-up process if you, or someone you know, is interested in taking part.

If you have any questions about the Black Thrive Employment Project, please email: employment@blackthrive.org.uk

Black Thrive Employment Project Grantees

Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework at SLaM

Welcome back and thanks for stopping by. Have you ever heard of PCREF? There was a blog about it in 2019 regarding mental health inequalities for black people. Mental Health outcomes for those from the Afro-Caribbean community has been very poor for a long time. So there has to be some form of change, but how can this go about? I think it starts with the community and a way for black people to come together and query how mental health services and support the community.

The blog about health inequalities from NHS England is below.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/how-can-we-have-the-same-outcomes-when-were-not-having-the-same-experiences/

South London & Maudsley short for SLaM are one of the mental health trusts looking to work with the black community on ways to support wellbeing and close the inequalities gap.

I recently made a short video as an intro into black health inequalities, although its not going to be the only video I am working on.

They are looking for members of the Black community to attend a series of events SLaM call ‘Fit for Partnership’. These events well focus on four boroughs they run services.

  • Croydon’s Black Community:  Tuesday 19 January, 6pm – 8pm:  Register here
  • For more information email:  CroydonIAG@bmeforum.org  

There will also be a Black service users and carers event, where details are below:

Four borough Service User and Carer event:  Thursday 4 February, 1pm – 3pm:  Register here 

For more information email PCREFapproach@slam.nhs.uk 

Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum October 2020

Welcome to a brief update on the October Mental Health carers forum for Lewisham. I have been so busy of late, that I did not have much time to do any writing. For the carers forum, the guest presenters were Carol Burtt who is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist for Lewisham and she spoke more about IAPTs in Lewisham.

We also had Susan George from the CQC who inspects GP services in Lewisham engaging and updating carer members of the forum.

Going back to Carol, she spoke about how the service IAPTs provides are primary care where they essentially provide help for people with mild to moderate psychological difficulties such as mild to moderate depression and or anxiety. Anxiety might include panic attacks, or a state of worry. Carol talked the group through such symptoms like generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, health anxiety, some OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, some relationship difficulties that might be leading to depression or anxiety.

Carol spoke about how mental health can cause some relationship difficulties that might be leading to depression or anxiety. So in fact, it might be more likely to be something that carers might experience themselves rather than the people that they are caring for. Carol then talked about how busy the service is, being that they had 880 referrals last month and they processed about 600 people who were seen last month.

For people to access IAPTs, you can get a telephone assessment within a few days, and this is what IAPTs is aiming for at the moment so that we can have a rapid response to people’s referrals. This is so people can get to speak to a clinician within a week, and a chance to talk about explaining the difficulties. People can get referred and then get directed to the most appropriate treatment.

Certainly last year, SLaM IAPTs did increase a lot of digital input so that people can actually have some treatments via online programs, which SLaM call computerized CBT, which could be an initial treatment. Carers can access that very quickly. So people can start such treatments within a week of having had your first telephone assessment with somebody. So that’s the benefit of that. Carol mentioned that IAPTs online is obviously not for everybody, some of the us know, that some people will want to have a direct face to face contact at the moment, obviously, with the COVID situation where SLaM working remotely.

Carol then explained more about the service as in how people are allocated to a psychological well being practitioner, SLaM have about 20 of those clinicians which Carol manages herself. These clinicians have had a training in a low intensity CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, so they’re trying to provide what we call Guided Self Help.

Carol then gave us an example of how people would have access to these different programs. One would be for depression. One would be for anxiety, one for social anxiety. The person would have some tasks and some information that they would have to deal with each week. Then each week, it finishes with checking in with person, either online or by telephone to see how you’re getting on.

Still, if people felt that their mental health was a bit more complicated, and SLaM felt that you need it, then any input with a psychologist or a cognitive behavioral therapist, or a counselor would be a three to four months, wait a moment.

Carol also explained that before the COVID situation, they were providing face to face workshops in groups where people actually attended their clinics, but since the pandemic has affected things, they are now looking at more online groups and workshops. Carol reminded us about our BAME forum where her colleague, Elaine presented and how she is leading on the development of some workshops, particularly for local communities in Lewisham.

QUESTIONS FROM THE CARER MEMBERS

A number of questions were asked of Carol from our members. One of the group members was interested in the following question on if the IAPTs service helps those with addictions when people have got the problems and they’re addicted smoking, drinking alcohol, or even taking illegal drugs?

Carol responded that they do is make an assessment as to whether addiction is a primary problem, or even if addiction is the biggest problem or there’s an element of depression and anxiety. For example, somebody who’s got a very serious drinking problem or significantly problem, then they would advise them to go to a specialist addiction service. Carol also repeated that they are trying to look at different ways in which people can access this help earlier, as soon as possible. They are looking at providing these online interventions, and online workshops as soon as possible so that people get some help. Very quickly, before I can say, for such problems develop further.

Another carer queried the struggles they have when the cared for has trouble accessing the service, especially from a mental health trust. The carer does not want to intervene, but notices how difficult it is for the caree to get lost in trying to access IAPT services. Carol mentioned that unfortunately, it’s the way things are organized. And they have a secondary care psychology that is very separate from primary care. So they don’t provide a service for people who’ve been admitted to secondary care psychology, which is a separate.

Another carer made a statement rather than a question and pointed out that she was referred to IAPTs on a series of six well-being workshops. She felt that the CBT there, she didn’t find that useful because it was too general.

CQC PRESENTS UPDATES

Susan from the CQC was listening closely to what carer members questioned or queried. Susan felt that its really important for representatives from CQC to hear our stories, and she really appreciates everything that was mentioned today. Susan continued that it’s also important because she is an inspector of GP Practices and part of her job is to ask providers what they’re doing in terms of providing care and support for carers. So it’s vitally important for her to hear carer members own experiences.

Susan mentioned that there was not too much time, but she would do just a quick summary of things she has been involved with, and what the CQC are doing at the moment. The CQC are looking around at communication with patients and patient populations, particularly with carers. The CQC are looking at a number of scenes of regarding the pandemic and how services have communicated with people.

Since the GP practices has started to shut their doors, the CQC are interested on what the GPs do to open up again, what are the GPs doing to tell people that they are open again, that they’re available for routine appointments? How are they telling people about the services that are available?

The CQC are also looking at sorts of communications, the CQC are looking at how GPS are maintaining equality of access or equity of access for people. There has been a huge change digitally in terms of the type of appointments and consultations that people will have. Not everybody is fluent in English or has access to digital means of equipment or resources.

Susan pointed out that some people who may find that trying to navigate their way through this new online world of appointments is baffling and terrifying. So the CQC are also looking at developing, how they talk to the GPs during inspections. The CQC are interested in what the GPs are doing to make sure that they’re communicating clearly with patient’s about the changes to appointments. Explaining to patients about the difference on treating for an emergency appointment, an urgent appointment, a routine appointment. There is a lot of assumptions that everybody knows all these phrases mean.

Susan updated us that the CQC have just published the “State of care 2019” for 2020. The report is available on the website, however Susan kindly sent us the link in the online zoom session.

The report is especially important because it pulls together some of the themes that the CQC have been looking at during COVID-19 and also pre COVID. The CQC are looking at some of the gaps in access to good quality care, especially mental health care. The CQC are also looking at the themes around system health inequalities around support and care for our better communities.

The CQC are also looking at communication and are interested in conflicting messages or conflicting nasty messages and guidance. It’s not always clear for patients and the CQC are interested in how GPs are engaging with their BAME communities.

Other things Susan pointed out was that the CQC have been working on questions about safe care and treatment and about the support for people living with mental health illness. The CQC are also asking providers specifically about how to be monitoring carers health and safety during the pandemic, have they been maintaining their registered unpaid carers and so what steps have the GPs taken to enhance the identification and management of the mental health issues of people living with mental health that includes people with dementia.

There were a lot of questions from the forum regarding the state of carer registers, some members are aware of the pressures GPs are under especially with new contracts, but others are keen to see where carers are being referred to and if social perscribers are doing their role.

HEALTHWATCH LEWISHAM ENGAGES WITH CARER MEMBERS

Healthwatch were there to listen to carer members regarding health services.

Healthwatch Lewisham are an independent charity. They are the patient champion for people who use health and social care services and so they listen to people on what’s going well on health services, what’s not going well.

Healthwatch Lewisham collect that feedback from patients and then at the end of every quarter they analyze and report back. Those reports are presented to sort of people in the borough of Lewisham that have the power to make change happen to like commissioners.

Healthwatch Lewisham also do project work and one of their recent projects was looking at the impact of the COVID-19 on Lewisham residents. That report has now been published. Healthwatch also has an advocacy service. So if anybody has complained about NHS service that they’ve used, and they can go through their advocacy service. So far healthwatch Lewisham have three advocates, and they basically help people through navigate the health system.

The reason Healthwatch Lewisham were at the forum was because they wanted to gather some feedback from people’s experiences with health and social care services. They were interested in feedback regarding GPs, hospitals, pharmacies, dentists, opticians, mental health services, Community Services, basically anything that carers and the person they care for has accessed.

Healthwatch Lewisham were kind enough to recognize that it’s a group environment and sometimes people don’t feel comfortable sharing their experiences. So even after the forum, members could feedback via the healthwatch email or site where they sent the link.

CARERS FEEDBACK TO HEALTHWATCH LEWISHAM.

Many of the group members fedback experiences on the following.

1) Lewisham Hospital
2) GP appointments
3) Positive aspects of using GPs
4) Dealing with receptionists
5) Dental appointments

This was the update for October at our Lewisham Mental Health carers forum.

Joint Southwark & Lambeth MH Carers forum October 2020

Here is the brief update of the October Joint Southwark & Lambeth Mental Health carer forum. This is one of the five carer groups that I run per month. The carer forum is an engagement & empowerment group for carers to learn more about mental health services and at least query what is on offer.

SOUTHWARK HEALTHWATCH UPDATE

As usualy the group is supported by the local mental health trust South London & Maudsley, we also had southwark healthwatch in attendance as well as both Southwark Carers and also Lambeth Carers. Lastly both the engagement leads of Lambeth & Southwark CCG were to be in attendance, although only Southwark CCG could make it, due to Zoom blocking Lambeth CCG. It must be noted that the 6 CCGs are now merged into NHS southeast London clinical commissioning group, so its not always clear who is from what (more on that later).

The forum was co-chaired by carers Ann Morgan (Lambeth) and Annette Davis (Southwark). Our first update was from Southwark Healthwatch who are interested in the experience of those waiting for hospital treatments, like for surgery or chemotherapy, anything in a hospital. Southwark Healthwatch are doing that through phone interviews or online chats in a group, whichever people feel the most comfortable with. They just want to hear from as many people about how waiting times in hospital has impacted them, and what could be improved. Southwark Healthwatch are also interested in how the waiting times affect mental health and I suspect on how badly covid-19 is affecting waiting times in hospitals.

Members are very interested to see the outcome on feedback from Kings Hospital trust and Guys & St Thomas hospital trust on waiting times.

LAMBETH CARERS UPDATE

Ann morgan then introduce Josh Simpkins from Carers Hub Lambeth to talk more about the Lambeth Carers Card, which came from the Lambeth carer’s strategy. Josh mentioned that they made a recording of the launch, which is on their website, YouTube channel and facebook. Although at the joint forum he was going to do a bit of an introduction and background on the scheme itself.

The card scheme itself helps with emergency planning for carers, which is especially prevalent today due to the covid-19 situation. Josh also talked about how the schemes template on how a carer can use the template as a process to quickly make use of resources if the usual carer resources were unaccessible.

Josh talked more about the carer’s strategy, but members are hoping to hear from Polly on any developments for carers in Lambeth. There is still a hint of jelously from myself as I feel Lewisham has a way to catch up in regards to a carers strategy, what impressed me futher is the strategy is taking shape even during covid-19 as the Lambeth carers care helps protect against dwindling resources. A governor at the forum actually asked if the card was either Southwark and or Lewisham, but unfortunately its only for carers in Lambeth. We can only hope the other boroughs can emulate the successes for carers in Lambeth.

Ann Morgan queried if there will be a card for young carers, which was an excellent question since young carers can be forgotten when it comes to developments and projects. I personally think due to the lack of young carer empowerment groups, its harder for young carers to get a voice, so its often older carers who may try and speak up for young carers. Josh from Lambeth carers hub mentioned they were brain storming ideas to help young carers in Lambeth and so we should watch this space.

Josh did mention another thing regarding young carers is that when he went in with, with his colleagues into Lambeth schools. They found that young carers wanted space to get away from their peers and connect with other young carers in a different space, rather than just the other pupils in the school. There was more to this than connection purposes, but it certainly was a start on the needs of young carers. Josh mentioned there certainly was discrimination on young carers at school, which many at the joint forum were aware of.

It was also mentioned from the Southwark Carers inpatient lead that what strikes them is that the carers card links everything together. Although there will be times when obviously, the carer is overloaded and might not know where to look, but its really impressive as the Lambeth carers card puts everything together. He hopes we could do something similar in southwark because he feels there are lots of pockets where carers cannot find resources, so it would be great to get everything under one avenue.

SOUTHWARK CCG – South East London Clinical Commissioning Group UPDATE

Next we had Bola Olatunde from the Southwark CCG group engage with carers on how they were working to support mental health and carers in the 2 boroughs. Bola first explained that there is no Southwark CCG anymore. They became NHS SE London CCG from the 1st of April 2020. So they were Southwark CCG up until the 31st of March, then six independent CCGs came together and then joined as one NHS southeast London CCG from the first of April. Those were Southwark CCG, Lambeth CCG, Lewisham CCG, Greenwich CCG, Bromley CCG and Bexley CCG. As of the summer, the South East London Clinical Commissioning Group has been heavily supporting the carers groups since I am active in Lewisham, Greenwich, Southwark & Lambeth, although there are plans to expand BAME carers in boroughs I am not active in, depends on my time.

Bola explained the to carer forum that they are now borough teams, but we don’t have six CCGs anymore. So they are the southeast London CCG. Bola was here to just to let us know that the team is still here and if any updates or developments are taking place then they will seek to engage with us. Bola posted some information in the chat box of ZOOM to raise awareness for the flu vaccination if people are eligible and to to remind them to book their appointments with a GP practice or local pharmacy.

There were a lot of questions from the group members on the nature of the new CCG structure and who does what within the new development.

SOUTHWARK CARERS UPDATE

We had an update from Mary Jacob who is the chair of trustees from Southwark Carers and also a carer, she updated the joint Southwark & Lambeth carers forum on what Southwark Carers is doing. Mary mentioned that at the moment, Southwark Carers at looking at their premises and how they are going to continue giving the best services that they can under the restricted funding they are having. Southwark carers still need to get confirmation with Southwark about how much funding they are to receive and when they are going to be funded till.

Southwark carers

Southwark carers are at least very grateful for the support they are getting so far. Currently Southwark carers are continuing with their services to all ranges of carers in the borough. Southwark carers are in partnership with a fair shares Co-Op, so they are still providing food parcels to the carers who win the most who are in the most need. Southwark carers are also still providing online activities, including exercise classes, salsa classes and also a film club. The last film that was shown during Black History Month, was the film Black Panther. The Film Club not only provides the film a source of entertainment and social contact for carers.

They are also going to continue with their cultural events right the way through the year, not just in October, they have a program of events that’s now being finalized, including sharing different recipes from different countries and different festivals including celebrating Diwali, celebrating Hanukkah, celebrating all the different cultural festivals.

Southwark carers are also going to have mindfulness classes online and they are looking at how to reach carers that may be find it difficult to get onto zoom.

Another Southwark Carer trustee present at the Joint Southwark & Lambeth forum mentioned that lots of carers aren’t IT proficient and it is documented that carers are to face real challenges in regards to finding time for self care.

So with self care being much of a priority and looking at the 360 overview of carers responsibilities, southwark carers are having to look at how they are revising their service to actually be more accessible in light of covid-19.

UPDATE FROM SOUTHWARK INPATIENT CARERS LEAD

We then had an update from David Meyrick the inpatient ward carer lead for Southwark under South London & Maudsley. Currently he mentioned they have taken steps regarding wards and have revisiting them such distance measures. They have found that there was different arrangements across the wards that were visited and they were just concerned that might be a little bit inconsistent, especially if you had a loved one readmitted and found it difficult to visit the ward. So SLaM have taken the steps forwards across the five wards that obviously needs to be booked in this way, it makes things a lot safer. So the staff can facilitate two visits a time but in the same bubble, is keep it safe that way. David thinks it’s been working well, so far.

David is aware that some inpatient wards are reluctant to do this, because its not always possible to just spontaneously support the patient and the visitor. however he feels it’s just in the best interest of all. So crisis support is working well. Plus they have set up virtual cave surgeries towards information provision, inside work, and, and running cameras to support carers and patients. They have a monthly, a weekly support group that runs and I’m sure and that’s providing emotional support and peer support that carers need.

Annette co-chair of the joint forum and carer herself mentioned that since she started working with David carers attend the group regularly every week. Annette felt she can actually see the difference and what the most significant things for carers is they want to be heard.

UPDATE FROM LAMBETH HEALTHWATCH

Lastly we had an update from Lambeth Healthwatch in what they have been doing since the last meeting.

Mental health of young people

Transition of young people with mental health needs and learning disability. We are looking into the transition pathway for three cohorts of young people: young people known to Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services (CAMHS); young people who have complex needs known to SEN team; and young people who have social and emotional issues not meeting the criteria for secondary care or not accessing service. We will interview young people, their carers/parents, and health and social care professionals. We will also hold focus group discussions with different groups of young people.

Young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing needs assessemnt – We are in the task and finish group of Lambeth Made. The group will investigate and analyse mental health needs of young people in Lambeth. This assessment will go beyond reviewing existing need but will also look at the protective and risk factors that influence mental health, modelled on a life course approach from maternity through to young adulthood. The findings of this assessment will feed into an overarching strategy to transform the offer of mental health and emotional wellbeing support we provide to CYP and their families; focusing on promotion and prevention, right through to specialist provision, seeking to uncover and address any unmet need. This needs assessment will replace the joint needs assessment carried out by Lambeth and Southwark Public Health Team in 2013/14 and will be informed by The Young Lambeth Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy and Plan 2015-20.

Campaigns regarding world mental health day

Lambeth Healthwatch hosted an event to mark World Mental Health Day 2020 on 7th October which was well attended. They will be hosting more of these regular online events which are open for anyone to attend.

There will be a Webinar next week on Wednesday 4th to mark National Stress Awareness Day.

I asked if they was any updates from Lambeth HW MH lead.

Lambeth Healthwatch responded that there is ongoing work with Lambeth Hospital to support staff and service users with the move to DBH. Planning some remote engagement sessions in November. The sessions will be aimed at understanding the views of hospital staff and service users on the development of Lambeth Hospital.

Lambeth Healthwatch are also involved in several projects looking at maternal mental health and the impact of Covid pandemic. In particular, they are working with King’s College Hospital and partners from different organisations to access women who are expecting or have given birth during the pandemic.

Lambeth Healthwatch are supporting the Adults Safeguarding Board in planning a workshop to mark Adult Safeguarding Week 2020 on 19th November 2020. The event’s theme is Safeguarding in our Community and will explore how we assess safeguarding issues in a digital world.

The last update from Lambeth Healthwatch is that they are supporting the Care Quality Commission to promote its campaign. They will interview six service users (2 people with learning disability, 2 older people, and 2 carers) from which they will write case studies and record a short video of each service user’s experience. They will also ascertain the success of the campaign after publishing the videos.

This is the October update from my Joint Southwark & Lambeth MH carers forum. If you are caring for someone with mental ill health in Lambeth or Southwark, check out the next dates of this carer forum at the following page.

Carer Forums

We Coproduce October forum 2020 – A Caring Mind book Section

If you have been a regular to visiting my blogsite then I am sure you have seen a few blog posts about the fantastic mental health forum over in West London. Taken from their website “We Coproduce CIC is an award winning social consultancy, owned and run by local people for people who care about the future of health care in the UK. They are commissioned to work with local communities to coproduce better and braver solutions to health and social care challenges.”

We Coproduce do a lot more than run their forums over in Hammersmith & Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing. Over many years they have worked closely with the mental health trust West London NHS trust on improving mental health for the community. For the October forum facilitated by both Jane McGrath and Natalie Louise there were many exciting speakers.

One of the speakers was myself where I talked about my new book “A Caring Mind”. You can see the talk I gave from the video below.

Matthew Mckenzie speaks about his new book – A Caring Mind

The book “A Caring Mind” shines the spotlight on the carer’s experience when caring for someone with a mental illness. Often carers stand in the background and carry on supporting their loved ones because of duty, love and just being there.

I felt it is about time I put my thoughts down in a book and We-Coproduce along with West London NHS Trust supported the work I was doing.

You can get hold of my book on Amazon either in Paperback or Ebook.

Lewisham Mental Health Carers forum September 2020

Welcome to September’s 2020 update of the Lewisham Mental Health carer forum. The forum is run via Zoom to protect attendees from the risk of Corona Virus. The forum usually runs from Carers Lewisham centre, but is now online. The carer forum gives carers in the borough a chance to engage with Mental Health and Local authority services. It is a form of empowerment for carers and a way to gain insight and knowledge.

The forum also gives carers a chance to work together with health providers as co-production often gets raised. For the month of September we had a special “Carer Peer support” event, where many other carers were invited from my other carer groups, especially some from Greenwich who were wondering what does it mean when a mental health trusts champions peer support. Carer peer support has a different focus though, as it is aimed at families and carers. It also must be mentioned that peer support does not have to be a service that comes from the mental health trust, but carers themselves can also practice it.

We were joined by Peer speciallist and carer Donald robertson from sussex NHS partnership over in Brighton, we were also joined by Shelagh Musgrave from Birmingham and Soulihil NHS trust. Both were at the forum to educate and explain the importance of carer peer support at NHS trusts and services. We were also joined by Rachel Ellis who is South London & Maudsley NHS deputy head of inclusion and lead for peer work.

As usual the forum was supported by SLaM Jane Lyons who is the Croydon & Lewisham Involvement lead, however our CQC member could not make the forum today and has requested an update. Some of the things mentioned by the other NHS trusts peer leads should be of an interest to NHS England as there were views regarding peer support pilots across 3 NHS sites.

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Carer peer support

Donald Robertson spoke at length of his role over at Sussex MH NHS Trust. He started off as a carer who cared for his wife for many years before slowly becoming more involved as peer specialist at his mental health trust. He now works within the NHS. So he feels like he can inhabit all three corners of the triangle of care in different ways. Due to being a carer, going through difficult times and being a health professional. Donald was trained as a social worker based on his own lived experience.

Donald mentioned peer support is about using his lived experience as a resource. It’s about changing things and how he wouldn’t go back to some of the times his been through, he wouldn’t even give his worst enemy back to some of those times he had, but his glad it that happened, because it made him a stronger person for today. Don pointed out peer working is a bit special. and it’s not just about having the the lived experience, it’s about how you use it. Peer support is how you support somebody with without having to be competing to see who has got the worse symptoms.

HOW PEER SUPPORT WORKS

Donald usually meets or chats to carers reffered to the trusts peer support via video link or phone and asks them “What would be helpful for you” “We can talk regularly as one to one around 15 minutes at a time. He would then confirm that the peer support can be flexible for carers to engage with him or donald could even be in contact with carers by text.

Donald spoke about the carers groups. One of the main groups actually existed before the COVID situation. Don mentioned that he sort od reshaped the carers group and things started settling in their place. The peer group has good numbers where 10 to 16 carers attend. So the peer group is really became very successful. Don asked that people to come to that carers peer group first or to call because he understands that when a carer is struggling? especially if its isolation or if they feel like they are the only one in such situation. Then being in the group where people just get it and understand where you’re coming from almost without having to say anything.

Don was glad to see veteran carers take the lead and set up a workshop to showcase the aim of peer support and the peer support group. There were challenges and struggles as other means to connect were difficult, especially connecting through social media or trying to work out how carers connected through whatsapp, plus NHS England set up something that is aimed to protect people’s anonymity which is very important, but also reduces the chance for carers to connect with each other.

It was also reported that when COVID-19 arrived around spring time, it shook peer support up a bit, because Don was not fully comfortable providing peer support online. This was especially when someone is telling you a difficult and emotional story only for the connection to drop, plus it misses several aspects of peer support including reading body language and giving others the chance to speak. Donald wanted to make the most of his time as being part of the NHS team when it comes to providing carer peer support, he did not want to duplicate what was provided there already and wanted to focus on giving more options for carers.

DESCRIPTION OF CARER PEER PATHWAY

I then took the oppertunity to ask Donald Robertson about his NHS Trusts flow chat regarding carer peer support. This was one way carers can examine how a mental health trust can provide support without having to read into any difficult jargon. It also gives an idea that the NHS trust is interested in carers and has a pathway on carers.

Donald told the forum that the chart is focused on carers supporting people having a first episode of psychosis, it’s about the evidence. So if you put some more intensive support in for some carers, that will mean that they will not end up in a long term service user. So the client service user is taken on and our standard assessment period is about six weeks.

There’s a lot of getting to know somebody before it’s completely clear, whether it is psychosis, or if there’s other factors, and Don actually gets involved earlier to help signpost to other services. Still, the lead practitioner identifies the carers and if the carer does not want support so close to the NHS Team then there is always independant carer support at Brighton’s carers hub. The mental health support team will always endeavor to keep the carer involved as much as they can.

You can find out more about Sussex NHS Partnership below.

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

QUESTIONS FROM THE FORUM

I then opened up the forum for carer members to ask questions regarding carer peer support at Sussex mental health NHS partnership.

A question on Older adults was of interest to a carer member. He was interested on what information did Donald give out the to older adult carers who are caring for someone with dementia. The carer was wondering if the pathways were more of a one shoe fits all policy. The carer member was also interested in sigma from the BAME community over in Brighton and wondered if Donald had any connection to that group.

Donald responded that it’s important to avoid the one size fits all policy. He engages with carers more as a person centered approach. So Donald is asking what the person in front of me needs. In the Services Donald works in it is all about people who have experience psychosis for the first time, traditionally that’s dominated by people in their late teens or 20s. So there’s a lot of work to be done about helping carers to acknowledge that they are carers. Donald feels his stereotype of a carer is somebody who is helping someone getting dressed, and maybe spoon feeds them, but he himself has never done that. His caring was much more about emotional support. And, rather than kind of fairly practical stuff even though they’re both important, but they are quite different.

I mentioned to the carer that since Sussex NHS partnership was a large trust that maybe Donald was not involved in the dementia service or BAME engagement, but there can always be a forum where we examine how other trusts engage with the BAME community.

Another carer member wanted to make a statement rather than a question, she felt so much resonates with her on what Donald spoke about. She pointed out 3 things, the First point was on how Donald mentioned the typical age group, that someone gets psychosis and some of the other illnesses or some of the other mental health illnesses. Her son fell ill when he was in his late teens. She still is not sure that her son’s illness has been fully identified and what caused it. Her Second statement was how it affected her so much that she couldn’t move on with her life, it was very difficult for her to move on.

Her Third and last statement was on how she was assisting my brother and even though her mother had 10 of us, she ended having to be the one taking on the caring for her brother, while most of the other members of the family want to know what’s going on with him they are not offering to help.

Donald responded and agreed that when one of the carers who was in that situation he remembered them telling him to “help them is help the people around me to not come through me” Donald remembered that he did a work with about four or five different people from that family. He felt it’s quite natural, because people are scared, it’s easier to get it second hand in some ways, because the main carer is that kind of buffer.

Another carer raised the point about my recently released book and if the CCG would take the oppertunity to help promote the book due to my high profile of raising carer awareness. A recent update is SLaM has purchased my book to the library under their carer’s section, although the carer mentioned the book should be standard reading on training staff about carer identity.

Birmingham and Soulihil NHS Trust carer peer support

The forum was given a chance to hear from another mental health trust on carer peer support. We heard from Shelagh Musgrave who is the Family Carer Peer Support Worker on the Women’s Secure Blended Service Team.

She started in her role nine months ago, but she was honest that there are challenges as she felt there are still NHS collegues who do not embrace family/carer involvement in getting peer support. She felt there can be a lack of communication to the carer and it needs to happen more often. This is particularly a problem when confidentiality continues to block carer involvement and then causes families to back out of recieving any other means of support.

She mentioned it can also be quite challenging to encourage colleagues at the NHS to understand that actually families and carers have shared information with them so then it’s no longer confidential. So if they have shared something with us and I tried to speak with colleagues about it, I surely can talk about it to them because it isn’t confidential anymore. Yet, this is not often the case as if something keeps blocking that triangle of care regarding families and carers.

Another issue with confidentiality is Shelagh’s role is actually with a charity rather than embedded with the NHS trust and even then confidentiality can sometimes block her off from getting involved or finding out what is going on. For example because she is peer support worker she might have picked up on a self harm incident and would need to update the family on what could be happening. She felt it’s really hard to get information as a carer and they just have to sit with it. It is like the carer is left wondering what’s happened this time.

The reality is that the carer be informed of these incidents, because it’s relevant to the person that cares for them, but unfortunately the culture of care is that carer may get shut out, which leads to impact or the trauma that might be taking place with the family and carer is left, as it always has been.

Shelagh mentioned that the NHS Trust actually have a family/carer pathway modeled within the trust, although it’s in the very early days. Still there is a problem as there is a seperate service user pathway and that process has created challenges as well, because it has led to some of her works going on hold.

Still there has been good engagement where it has made a great difference for families. Shelagh mentions she goes on to contact carers and get feedback from them, which is incredibly positive. Shelagh stats that she has a very proactive approach to being in touch with families and carers and she essentially makes my initial contact with them introduce herself explaining what her role is.

Shelagh does ask carers, what would be helpful for them. But she also makes them aware that she will be touching base with them regularly. So her approach tends to be, and she will call and if you don’t want to speak to me, that’s absolutely fine. I will check in on a monthly basis and I wouldn’t take offense, if you tell me you don’t want to hear back from me going forwards. Oddly enough no carer has actually told her that they do not want to hear from her.

Still Shelagh does not speak to every carer that’s on the books and she does make contact with as many of them as she can, but is not permitted to contact some because there are some for clinical reasons that I’ve been asked not to be in touch with, which she felt was a shame, but she can’t argue with that because she does agree with that everybody should be entitled to access peer support, if they wish and she do think it should be your decision, I do think it should be a clinical decision.

So she has ongoing contact, which ranges from anything from every fortnight to every two months. What she also do is feed concerns that the family have back into the a clinician. So for example, we had a young woman who was being discharged. Her family had attended the discharge CTA section 117 meeting, but actually hadn’t been given any contact details for the community care coordinator or the accommodation manager. So I was able to feed that information in the team to get contact details from the team and was able to get information to that family.

As far as the NHS knows they were aware that she has ongoing contact with families, but what she finds really interesting is a professional at the NHS states to her that our contract has to be meaningful. What does this mean?

Well meaningful to who and when you drill down, meaningful contact seems to be viewed as contact that is going to provide information that’s relevant to the service user. So if Shelagh’s contact with the family is not going to provide the clinician with information that is useful and valuable to the service users care then there is little point in meeting the family, but Shelegh is against this culture, because in her role she is there to support the families and carers and I, if they happen to share something about services or have a team.

Shelagh does tell NHS professionals she works with right in the beginning, that she works for a charity in partnership with the NHS and has an honorary contract with the NHS. However she is not sure if it’s because she works in the charity or because the NHS hears the word peer that NHS professionals might stand back.

Shelegh feels the feedback she gets is the value of talking with somebody who has lived experience is “that you just get it” and the carer does not have to explain what things are like to me. Shelagh has lived through it. She feels because carers might be limited in communication if they are talking to an NHS professional, nurse or psychiatrist. There’s often a sense of well, what do you know? What do you know, you haven’t experienced it from my carer’s side? So how can you stand there and say this to me. Whereas carers sense if she says something to do them or listening to them, and they will often say to her but you do understand this, don’t you?

It’s like a shortcut has created in connecting with carers and families where you don’t have to explain to people, what it’s like to deal with your child who self harms and you don’t have to hide from people, or you don’t have to explain to people how heart wrenching it is to hear when your child says to you ” I don’t want to live anymore why dont you just let you die?”

You can find out more about Birmingham & Soulihil NHS Trust below.

https://www.bsmhft.nhs.uk/

Family Carer Peer Support Worker view on the future of carer peer support

Shelagh felt that there is a massive need for carer peer support workers. She is aware that carer peer support research is very limited. However, she thinks we have to look at is that the research into peer support itself shows its value. So why do we have to differentiate whether or not peer support is carer or service user we’re looking at here towards the value is of lived experience. Doesn’t matter what your lived experiences?

Personally, she don’t believe it does. And But clearly, there are people who work by the research. That being NICE (National Institute in Care & Excellence) works by the research, Shelagh mentioned that she is very upset wit NICE because of this and she think that’s really sad peer research is not extending to families and carers.

Shelegh feels when carer peer support is established and its on the ground then we can see the difference that it makes, she feels that does not matter, what the background of the lived experiences is and wonders is she the only person in the NHS trust, which has 4 and half thousand staff?

There is a definite barrier of some sort, by changing the way families and carers engaged. Shelagh thinks we need to be doing it. She thinks we need a top down and bottom up approach, which has to come together. Because if you don’t have the support from the senior management’s, you’re not going to have this sense of drive.

Shelagh hopes that over time, she hopes that more and more people will change and understand that families and carers are not just there to provide background information on the service user. Carers are the equal partners in the NHS and NHS professionals also have a responsibility to families and carers. Because if they don’t support the families and carers with somebody is in the inpatient setting and they just discharge them into their community that hasn’t been upskilled or that hasn’t been supported, then it’s good to keep that revolving door going on for decades.

South London & Maudsley Peer worker presents

Rachel who is SLaM’s lead for peer working thanked Don and Shelia for their experience and is eager to see what results in regards to NHS England’s pilot peer project. Rachel is interested in what worked and what didn’t work. She was also thinking very much about what was the feeling or thinking about peer support is it needs to be co produced. Rachel felt that we can’t just take the model from Birmingham or NHS England and then drop it down in South London and hope that it works.

What SLaM needs to look at is that we need to learn from what the carers want to help them relate and be involved and also engaging with the BAME community. We also want to make sure that we have something that we know works from the outset and avoid that one size fits policy, we need to be creative, and we hope to be working alongside our carers to make sure that we get it right.

Rachel feels the big questions and the elephant in the room is about money/resources and how state to the CCG or other people to make sure that kind of professionalized peer support is seen as important and something that they’re willing to fund that and I feel that’s where the carers forums like this really come into its own and making a guideline proposal around what you’d want from care with peer support.

Rachel mentioned it would be really useful for members to write something formal to the Commissioners about your needs and what you think professionalised peer support would look like. Rachel added what carers would think the benefits are to the CCG especially relating to the triangle of care.

So it’s not just around providing peer support and support for carers, but also making sure that that’s all linked in so we get a really good support for when someone’s discharged or someone’s community services. Its not only important support for carers, but it’s also seen as linking up care for the people who use SLaM’s services.

This concludes the September update for the Lewisham Mental Health carer forum.