Hello, welcome to my latest blog. This particular blog is aimed at carers. This post hopes to be an inspirational message for anyone who is caring for a family friend or even a neighbour.
This post looks at promoting your voice as a carer. As a carer by our role, we give up so much and sometimes expect little, by definition health services and sometimes social services are aimed at the patient. Policies and laws can often assume that the family and carer are strong enough to cope by themselves.
What Carer forums need to take note of
Welcome back to my mental health blogsite. Most of the time I write about Unpaid Carers who support someone close requesting mental health needs or are suffering from mental illness. On this blog I am going to write about why Carer forums need to take note of what their local mental health trust is doing.
Quite a few mental health trusts do amazing work regarding patient care, but there should be a place where carers can get together with the trust and raise concerns. We all know the mental health service is struggling as of present and this can affect service users and their families.
Just as a reminder, not all carer groups are the same. You can have a carer support group, where carers get to tell their story in a safe closed space. We can also have a forum where time is put into presentations, discussions and agendas. Lastly some carer groups have a mixed of presentations and carer stories where carer seek emotional support, some carer groups act as information hubs where peer supports or MH staff aide carers on how to get support.
Most of the issues below are usually covered in a Carer forum, where there is little or no time for carer stories and more time is spent on understanding why certain Trust problems are occuring.
Out of all the issues listed, this would be the most common that affects carers and those they seek to support. If the patient cannot get any treatment or support, then most if not all the support falls onto the family or carer who all too often will lack the skills to provide the treatment.
Delays usually occur if there are no beds, but even then the trust may not be fully at fault as GPs can often misdiagnose a mental health need. Lack of mental health staff can lead to delays as no one is available to provide a mental health assessment, which can often end up with the police stepping in wondering what to do. Within a Carer forum, carers should query with the mental health trust if there are any delays regarding treatment and query reports on how many patients have been seen at the trust.
Again, This is one of the most common issues that can affect the patient and carer. Medication is usually one of the core aspects of mental health treatment. Wrong medication can often cause the patient to deteriorate even further. What is even worse is if no medication is provided. Often the patient can refuse medication, it is their right, but due to mental health laws or MH Trust policies (we ll come to this later) there could be high levels of failures in providing medication.
Embed from Getty ImagesWithout medication, service users can relaspe causing distress with family, friend and carer. Serious Incident levels begin to rise and Carer forums should query who is responsible for monitoring medication incidents.
This problem is not only common to mental health trusts, but also partner organisations. GP surgeries, Advice bureaus and even hospitals can fail here. Failure to refer patient or carer for support can leave both in isolation and desperation. Carer forums should not only query patient/carer leaflets, but also if there are a lack of carer information leaflets/booklets or why information has not been produced in a document.
Going through past serious incidents, if you look back far enough you will find someone had been constantly ignored. Oddly enough even the gatekeepers to mental health services can be ignored. Carers can try to raise an issue with mental health professionals that their loved one is experiencing a crisis and needs to be assessed. Carers would either phone, email, write a letter or speak face to face with Mental Health Staff, but if nothing is done and a serious incident arises then it should be queried.
Carer forums should have an interest to query if members of the forum have experienced this and if the trust produces reports regarding such issues. Maybe a Mental Health trust have a policy to tackle carer/patient requests. Carer forums should certainly discuss developments regarding the trusts patient database system and ask for database queries.
A poor risk assessment can certainly lead to incidents as mental health problems can go misdiagnosed. This leads to carers having to struggle supporting their ‘cared for’ in a crisis for longer amount of time. The problem is risk assessments are notoriously difficult to measure or even regulate. Members of the Carer forum should not only query how a risk assessment is done, but ask for reports on the number of assessments carried out and who at the trust are task with doing them.
Lack of training can lead to all of the problems raised so far in this blog and even more. A mental health trust has a duty to continually train its staff, not only to help the patient but improve the quality of its staff. Mental Health staff should be patient and Carer aware. Carer forums should make a lot of noise if they continually hear stories of staff who do not understand what a carer is. I myself am fortunate to be included in helping to train staff at South London & Maudsley about families and carers, but there are some trusts that may not even provide training about carers or might not involve carers in their service.
Carer forums should ask for engagement from a trusts Staff training forum. Carer forums should have members who are active in training mental health staff and there should be involvement protocols to allow carers to be involved at the trust.
One of the biggest issues regarding carer and patient. I have been to many carer forums talking about the good and bad aspects of confidentiality. I have also been making a lot of noise about confidentiality, which I am sure has annoyed mental health professionals.
Why is this?
If carer is continually blocked on asking how their ‘loved one’ is coping or being involved at meetings, it might boil down to patient confidentiality, sometimes the patient will not want the carer involved, but it is a lot more tricky than that. Mental Health trusts have the duty to help the patient understand why the carer would want to be involved unless it is a safe guarding issue. Unfortunately confidentiality can be used as an excuse to avoid dialogue with the family or carer. Lack of confidentiality policies or booklets can cause confusion with staff and carer not knowing what to do.
Embed from Getty ImagesCarer forums should task themselves with who is responsible for confidentiality policies/booklets. Family and carers should also be involved in training staff about confidentiality.
Due to bed management, patient discharge can happen too soon and sometimes might not happen at all. Some patients might be discharged because a bed is needed or a patient might be discharged because there has been a misdiagnoses of their MH needs. Discharge to a carer is risky if the carer is not prepared, informed or involved.
A carer forum should query a trust’s discharge pathway and seek engagement from the mental health trusts Quality improvement team.
Another difficult issue to monitor or assess. Sometimes a mental health carer forum can pick up stories where carers are complaining that their ‘loved one’ is not getting any community care. It is vital a carer forum raises such stories to the trust otherwise families or carers may find themselves becoming the mental health team and being told to just “get on with it”.
Mental Health trusts can be pulled and pushed in all sorts of directions. Such problems can cause a trust not to update protocols and policies. If protocols and policies are not followed, then incidents can arise from them. Carer forums should ask for a list of policies related to carers (Expect the number to be large).
Difficult to measure due to confidentiality, but reports should be processed on the number of care plans done. Carer forums should most definitely be consulted with the CQC (care Quality Commission) who monitors and inspects health services. A patient without a care plan can often cause the carer to not know their role and this can lead to a lack of patient recovery.
Embed from Getty ImagesThis is often a culture problem and unfortunately a carer forum may have to poke their nose into what the local council is doing. Healthwatch should be able to help the carer forum engage with other agencies, but if there continues to be poor communication between agencies then a number of health problems will not be picked up or delayed.
This might also boil down to confidentiality, but quite a lot of issues can be down to training, misinterpretation, lack of time or difficultly in building relationships. Issues of trust can also cause an issue here. Carer forums should keep an eye open if poor communication is happening at their local mental health trust.
The CQC can come down hard on mental health trusts on this issue. Mental Health trusts have been fined large sums for poor record keeping. If a patient has no record or is not past information required to their care, then the quality of care can go downhill.
It has been unfortunate that Trusts have an appetite for Bank Staff or temporary MH staff. There are policies that have come into place to reduce reliance on Bank staff, but due to pay issues it has been known for staff to move into the field of becoming temporary since it pays more. Care forums should query if the trust is spending vast sums of money on bank staff, because without a doubt other MH services will suffer funding shortages and skilled professions.
Very difficult to tackle and this might be down to serious incidents being confidential. Mental Health trusts do not like being investigated or being fined, no one likes their reputation damaged. Unfortunately families and carers cannot sit around and have a MH trust culture to become silent. MP’s, councilors, Trust governors and other agencies can aide Carer forums if something is not right with the trust. To make matters worse there can even be collusion as everyone is trying to save money.
No one is usually in a rush to highlight cover ups, but if they are not tackled then every one suffers. There are usually signs when something is not right or investigations are taking too long.
Ever heard of the term “Lessons learned?”. I will perhaps create a blog to poor excuses. If a trust fails to provide care to a large number of patients repeatedly then a carer forum should have space to work out why this keeps happening.
Carer forums and members of the trust should be engaged at trust events and space given to query what the trust actually have learnt from successes of failures.
The issues listed are very basic and some items have been missed due to lack of time. I can only hope whoever is reading has the strength, time and conviction to engage with their carer forum if one has been set up around their mental health trust.
Thanks for reading
Welcome back to another health awareness video. I have been gone quite a long while, but that doesn’t mean I have not been very busy. I usually am involved with many carer forums and groups in and around south/south east London. I try to raise awareness of unpaid carers who look after someone suffering from mental illness.
To see the video version, please click below
However there comes a time when we need to look after ourselves, be it if we are caring for someone or trying to care for ourselves. This video looks into Self Care week, which runs from November 13th to November 19th. The theme is Embracing Self Care for Life. Self care is about keeping fit and healthy, understanding when you can look after yourself and also when to askfor advice from a GP.
If you are unwell or suffer from a long term condition then it is very important you find out as much as you can in order to support yourself. Self care need not be so difficult if you know what you are dealing with.
Across the UK many suffer needlessly when dealing with weight problems, lack of exercise and stopping smoking. Getting information or attending events can be useful in combating unhealthy lifestyles. If you are caring for someone, you can easily fall into the habit of not paying much attention to your own health needs. It is an easy mistake to make especially when you have little time for yourself.
From the self care forum website, there are tips and advice not only for yourself, but for GP surgeries and pharmacists up and down the UK. It is a massive drive to get the population healthier and combat damaging habits to our health.
You can find out more about Self Care week from the Self Care forum on http://www.selfcareforum.org/events/self-care-week/
Remember if you cannot find time to self care for yourself, think of how hard it would be for you to care for someone else.
Hello everyone to welcome another blog post for February. I usually do carer awareness videos and mental health videos. You can check out my blog site, which has more information about mental health and carer awareness information.
Feel free to also check out my newspaper and my Twitter channel, I also have an audio site which has podcasts. However should updated that soon.
The price carers can pay
Welcome to another blog post by mental health carer Matthew Mckenzie. It has been a while since I last posted a blog, but I have been quite busy working on my new online newspaper. I have also been busy with my caring role and I certainly admit it has not been easy, never is that role easy.
Anyway, what i want to do is raise awareness of the caring role. I want to try and lay things down straight and be as honest as possible, after all families and carers deserve this don’t they? Just in case I have not made myself clear. A mental health carer is someone (unpaid) who looks after someone they care about who is suffering mental illness, distress or problems.
Welcome to another carer blog post. My blog site works to raise the awareness of mental health carers, that being unpaid carers/caregivers looking after or supporting someone suffering mental distress. The website also tries to raise awareness of mental health, charities and their events.
So this time i want to focus how important it is to take time to listen to carers stories. Listening to how a person became a carer can allow us to relate on a certain level regarding their caring journey. Obviously there is no way a person can relate 100% to any carer, only at a certain level as in sympathizing or recognizing a carer when you see someone in a stressful caring situation.
Thanks for popping along to read another of my carer blog posts. Aren’t we lucky today, just this morning I had released a blog post about sociology and now I am blogging again regarding carer involvement.
As of this morning I am a carer governor of my local trust, that trust being NHS South London and Maudsley, I am also a carer representative at that trust and fairly active in the communities as I set on many forums and groups. Why do I do all this you may wonder? Well read on and I hope to get the message across.
Welcome to another blog post by carer Matthew Mckenzie. For this blog post I want to express my views on involvement as a governor. As you might already know by now, I govern a large NHS mental health trust, that being SLaM or South London & Maudsley.
Welcome to another blog post by Matthew Mckenzie a carer for someone surviving mental health problems. I thought I would write this blog post on mental health carers who can sometimes be ignored by the system designed to recognize and support them.
I thought this time I would do a post on an healthwatch event. Now I have done some posts about healthwatch before, sometimes Healthwatch Lewisham and other times Lambeth, but this time I was over in the London borough of Southwark for the Healthwatch Southwark event – One Year on.
Before I continue on how the event went, what is healthwatch Southwark all about? Well basically taken from their site – Healthwatch gives people a POWERFUL voice locally and nationally on matters concerning health services. At a local level, local Healthwatch will work to help local people get the best out of their local health and social care services. Whether it’s improving them today or helping to shape them for tomorrow.
Now there are healthwatches across different boroughs of London and the UK, all giving people the chance to form an opinion of the health services. Healthwatch does more than just listen and engage, they also do enter and view of health services and produce many reports. So the thing is what has Healthwatch Southwark been up to over the year they have been in action?
Well on the 22nd of November, I took a trip over to Pembroke House over in Southwark and was greeted friendly by the healthwatch staff and a staff member of “Community Action Southwark”. As a reminder, the Healthwatches are heavily volunteer focused and depend on involvement by the community, especially by those who have a passion for improving or championing the health service in the UK.
When I entered the premises, I was glad to see quite a few stalls on display, although one of my main interest was the stall about mental health awareness and engagement. I took the opportunity to visit the CoolTan Wellbeing stall. CoolTan Arts exists to inspire and transform peoples lives though creativity and self-advocacy. The stall advertised the up and coming CoolTan Coolwalks, which I have been on several times. The stall also had booklets and information about mental health and a video about different periods the coolwalks focused on.
The next stall I visited was a stall promoting sexual health research and awareness, which is one of Southwark Healthwatch’s main area on raising awareness about sexual Health. I spoke to the stall holder about her research and its main aim is to have people from the area of Lambeth & Southwark from aged 16-30 be part of an innovative sexual health study, where people can look to getting a sexual health check and tell them what they think about the service. Getting tested on sexual health is very important for many reasons.
Soon I spoke to the stall holders of the Southwark & Lambeth Integrated care where Health and social care organisations and people in Southwark and Lambeth have come together so that local people can lead healthier and happier lives. I was impressed by their display and the stall holders explained some important reasons for building a community along the lines of better healthcare. They want people to at least
– Feel they are a part of the community
– Have systems in place so they can avoid having a crisis at a later stage
– Live independently
– For carers to live the life they want to the best of their ability.
– and lots more
Another stall I visited was the Southwark CCG stall, where they had lots of interesting information on what Southwark Doctors have been doing to improve healthcare for the borough. The CCG stands for Clinical Commissioning Group, which basically means a membership organisation of all the GP surgeries in a borough who help organise the delivery of NHS services. One of the main focus of the CCG is of the commissioning of services hence where should the money be allocated to on providers of health services.
My main interest was the Southwark CCG summary annual report for 2013-14. I also picked up and took away people’s health information is used in the borough of southwark. I urge those interested in their health and health services to read up on such information when they can.
I also noticed stalls doing free health checks, free eye check examinations and I was also given a free health goodie bag. I guess Xmas has come early for me.
After having some tasty lunch, which was provided free of charge by Healthwatch Southwark. We then went upstairs for the main event. The event was to hear what has healthwatch Southwark been up to? It was time to hear their story.
First to speak was Southwark Healthwatch Chair David Cooper. David spoke on the following being how much work and effort HW Southwark has been doing, The new NHS 5 year plan in south london, how financially difficult it has been for the health services and the importance of Healthwatch Southwark.
David then moved on to the agenda of today’s speakers, which I was keen to hear from.
We were then introduced to the new Healthwatch Southwark Manager Aarti Gandesha, now Aarti spoke about more about Healthwatch Southwark’s aims as you can see from the picture. She also talked about how people can get involved with healthwatch and there are many ways to get involved if you are passionate about your health services.
Aarti then talked about what HW Southwark has been up to so far and many of their engagements have been on the community focus groups involving different members of Southwark’s communities. Healthwatch Southwark have also held many public forum events and community events. Plus HW Southwark have been busy collecting stories for their joint ‘1000 lives’ project.
The Healthwatch Manager then moved on to explain what Healthwatch priorities are for Southwark and there are 4 being
1. Access to GP Services
2. Access to Mental Health Services (my main area of interest)
3. Sexual Health Services
4. Social care Services
Next Aarti talked about Healthwatch Southwark’s archievements during the past year where they have
– Engaged with a large number of people over group sessions
– Established 4 priority areas
– have 676 supporters
– received 194 info and signposting queries
– and more
After Aarti’s presentation and talk, we then got to hear a story from a carer in the borough of Southwark. The story resonated similar themes that I go through as a carer e.g. the worry of services being closed down, being able to relate to others, the hope that things will get better and having to provide advice for others.
We then got to hear a talk and presentation from Southwark CCG Director Paul Jenkins. Now Paul’s talk was on the current & Future Opportunities for locality and neighbourhood working. Paul talked about understanding Southwark’s population and health needs (shown as a tree in picture).
Plus Paul talked about the direction of travel when people needed to access health services in Southwark. The aim was to look into providing GP practices that will work closer together in the borough, plus providing a wider range of hospital care closer to patients homes. The thing I noticed from Paul’s talk is that services will need to work together since there will be many challenges.
We were shown the different neighbourhood groups of practices and their reach into the community. Plus the explanation of the direction of travel where many schemes and projects will be set with the aim of GPs working together
The last speaker was Kerry Crichlow who is Southwark Councils director of strategy and commissioning. Her talk was about health and social care commissioning and the integration in the borough of Southwark.
Kerry gave a quick run down on the big issues about commissioning. Those being an ageing population and responding to financial challenges, plus health inequalities. Next Kerry moved onto opportunities where a strategy developed to aid the patient’s journey through their experiences in health. Plus building a stronger framework on prevention and inclusion. Kerry spoke more about the opportunities to shape provisioning around people and maximising integration of health services.
After the presentations, the public and patients who attended got to ask some quick questions, I won’t go into the answers, but some questions were based on
What can be of assistance for those who have physical disabilities or those who have hearing impairment?
What can bridge the divide in health equalities in the borough of Southwark?
How can personalisation help those who have had bad experiences health assessment?
The next and last stage of the event was people to seperate into groups and provide HW Southwark and their facilitators opinions on the following
1 – Service Changes
2 – HW Priorities
3 – Involvement in HW Southwark
The one I chose was the “Involvement” table on how can Healthwatch get more people to volunteer. Each person on our table talked about their role and connections and we also talked about who do each of us talk to when we experience good or bad things in health service. Usually it would be our friends, family or specific groups. For me I tend to speak about my experiences at a carer’s group.
We also discussed the importance of social media, which is one of my area of expertise and also the purpose of volunteering since some would like to volunteer, but are not sure how much work it would involve.
After feedback from each table. David then thanked all for attending. I was particularly glad I attended the event and was allowed to even blog the event. What I got most off this event is learning more about Southwark’s Health and social care setting, learning even more about Healthwatch, networking as I got access to sit on more groups and also giving my opinions.
Thanks for reading my blog post of this event.
