Tag Archives: unpaid carers

Coping skills for carers and caregivers

Welcome to another carer awareness blog post from carer activist Matthew McKenzie. Today I want to raise awareness that carers should not always helpless and vulnerable. It is true that there are many things a carer cannot control, but that does not mean we should remain helpless.

There are coping strategies carers should try. It might seem like a cheap way to solve difficult and challenging issues, but the risk is mental and physical decline if you do not arm yourself with coping strategies. This is particularly important if you are caring for someone with challenging health issues.

There are ways carers can support themselves by developing problem solving skills in tackling isolation, negative thoughts and falling into bad coping habits.

First and foremost, it is critical that we admit that we are caring for someone. Once you get past that hurdle, you need to be aware of when you struggle with moods. There is no easy solution, as developing coping methods take time and energy. It helps to understand mindfulness and write about your feelings.

Understand what triggers you and work out a way to reduce those triggers. Getting angry about everything is a reaction and we need to protect our mental health. We cannot keep reacting to things, even if certain things are outside our control. This is especially when it comes to the health of the person we are caring for.

It is important to also set time aside to care for yourself. It might be exercsing by going for a quick walk or having to set boundaries. Some people wear themselves down due to their role and it is not helped with a fragile health and social care system. This does not mean there should be the tragedy of the ‘cared for’ suffering and also the carer. It is not selfish trying to set time for ourselves.

It could be a hobby, talking to a close friend or even confiding in another carer who has gone through that caring experience.

For more information on coping skills, please check out my video below.

Thanks for stopping by and if you are caring for someone, please also look after yourself.

Carers Week 2024 – Help put carers on the map

Hello everyone. I am Matthew McKenzie, Carer Activist, poet and author. Volunteer for Carers UK, Carers Trust and Macmillan Cancer support to raise awareness of unpaid carers using my lived experience of caring.

At the time of this blog post it is Carers Week 2024. Carers Week 2024 could not arrive at such a better time, especially with an election happening.

For Carers Week 2024, the theme is “Putting Carers on the Map”. I know many carers are facing so many challenges in their role. This could be down to difficultly providing unpaid care, getting engagement from health & Social care services or even being identified as carers.

Many carers up and down the country can be easily hidden, they carry on with their caring role unaware of the support that can be offered to them.

With an election due to take place, the chance to put carers on the map has never been greater. It is an excellent chance to use our voices, experience of care and connections to continue to raise awareness.

So I am counting on many to help raise that much needed awareness of Carers Week. If you are a carer, health professional or someone with lived experience, it might be worth looking out for events from 10th of June to the 16th of June.

I will continue to write and promote carer events nationwide and do all I can to help raise awareness of carers, I hope you can as well. You can sign a pledge on the Carers Week website or you can run an event yourself. There is nothing too small to place carers on the map.

Poem for Carers Week

For carers week to share
It helps to be aware
That if you really care
Listen up for your own welfare

Its best you are not ignored
Noted a carer to be on record
For support is your reward
So social care back onboard

For Carers week is here
With events to promote and shareb
Its worth attending, just be there
To learn about unpaid care

So please dont be ignored
It something you cant afford
Support and help explored
Faith in the system restored

Top 10 things unpaid carers struggle with

Welcome back to another carer blog post by Matthew McKenzie carer activist and author in London.

I thought to try promote carer causes and focus on things that I reckon carers struggle with. As usual when I am talking about carers, I am talking about caring for someone in the family or as a friend.

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Whether a person is caring out in the community or visiting the person they care for in hospital, there are challenges people need to take note of.

Here is a list down below

Isolation – Caregivers can often feel cut off from the outside world, especially if caring, hard to understand
Emotionl strain – Taking care of a loved one and being responsible for their health can be very stressful. depression, guilt, sleep loss.
Financial situation – This struggle can cause all sorts of stress, the financial burden felt by caregivers should not be overlooked.
How Caring can impact on opportunities – if your caring, then you are not earning or developing other skill bases. Still caring can develop it’s own skill base.
identification as a carer – people do not always see themselves as a carer, but can lose out on support
Getting access to support – respite, advocacy, emotional support, planning for the future
Strains on Relationships – caring can be a joyful experience, but also stressful, lack of time for friends or family
Being involved in care – confidentiality, jargon in NHS, relationship breakdowns, sometimes being missed in identification. These things can cause the carer to be uninvolved.
Advocating for the cared for – need to deal with GPs, social workers, pharmacists, care agencies, receptionists and so on.
Not being able to Focus on themselves – most of the previous things mentioned focus on the struggles carers face when caring, but too much focus can cause the carer to loose sight of their own well being. It is important to take time out, sleep, talk to a friend. Not easy if caring in crisis.

If you want a more detailed explanation I have also made a video below.

More Carer Poems by Matthew McKenzie

Hello fellow unpaid carers. Here are some more poems from my book “The Poetry book of mental health caring”.

Every so often I tend to make videos of my poetry off my YouTube Channel.

The Long Wait – Poem by Matthew McKenzie

The Poem below describes my experiences in a hospital when trying to help my mother who was suffering mental and physical health problems at the time.

The unwanted role – by Matthew McKenzie

This poem below focuses on someone becoming an unpaid carer for the first time. The poem explains from their view that they are slightly aware of the difficulties they will face, but will have to face these challenges alone.

How do I say this? – by Matthew McKenzie

The Poem below explores the struggles a carer has in understanding mental illness. He is aware of the stigma when he is trying to communicate with his daughter, but he is dealt a blow regarding his own caring duties and also to fight to sustain a relationship with his daughter.

The Triangle – by Matthew McKenzie

The poem below explains a mental health policy aimed at NHS organisations to make sure carers are included in services. The Triangle of Care has a long history and is highly sought after by mental health NHS trusts to strengthen carer strategies.

To explore more carer/mental health poems from Matthew McKenzie, you can check out the book below on Amazon.

Mental Health carer poetry – On Alert

Happy new year to visitors of my mental health carer blog site. As mentioned in my earlier blog posts, I am working on promoting awareness of caring for someone suffering mental ill health.

I created a number of carer poems, quite a few are on this site, but are subject to being edited as I am often fine tuning poems.

I am also adding a couple of my poems on to my YouTube platform and will blog them every so often.

The poem I want to introduce here is titled “On Alert” as it highlights the struggle unpaid carers go through in prompting medication. A lot of carers hate doing such a task, but when the experience the person’s mental health crisis, they want to try avoid the situation again and take resort to being on alert.

Watch my 2 minute poem “On Alert” off my video link below.

Greenwich Mental Health Carers forum June 2021

Here is a brief update of our Greenwich mental health carer forum for June 2021. This carer forum focuses on empowerment for mental health carer, while my Greenwich Mental Health carer peer group is on peer support and carer networking.

We were joined by MP Matthew Pennycook who is the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich.

Matthew was mainly here to listen to unpaid mental health carers, which he could take up be it compliments or concerns. I could not go into any details but a few issues were raised one on the state of GP practices. We were also joined by Nosizo Magaya who is CQC’s lead inspector for Oxleas.

Nosizo spoke about what the CQC that being Care Quality Commission does and how they engage with NHS staff, patients and those who care for service users.

Nosizo reminded us that the CQC are a regulator, so they regulate all health services in England. She felt that perhaps the CQC could describe themselves as the Ofsted of health care. The only difference with the CQC and Ofsted is that they can prosecute, if they feel that there are providers that are not providing the adequate care.

So the CQC as an organization has got teams of inspectors that go in and review the care that’s been given to people. Sometimes they respond to whistleblowing, or any responses from any member of the public. Typically, if they do get a concern, they will contact the provider. If the person who gave the CQC the information is happy for them to share it. The CQC will contact the provider and ask for feedback and query what happened with this consent that has been raised. Their teams are a combination of different people on their health care professionals, anything from doctors to nurses, physiotherapists, and also some that are not healthcare professionals being expert by experience.

Nosizo also mentioned that they are based according to team, so the London mental health and community health service team would look after oxleas and she is the main contact for oxleas. Some queries from members were worried how long it would take to raise questions to the CQC, although another carer reminded that even if the CQC did not speak to a carer during inspection, it is always wise to raise a query off the CQC’s website.

You can check out more from the CQC off the site below.

https://www.cqc.org.uk/

Joint Southwark & Lambeth MH Carers forum March 2021

Welcome to the March 2021 update of the joint Southwark & Lambeth Mental Health carers forum. I know its a mouthfull of a title, but just consider its an open forum for those who care for someone suffering mental distress.

For the month of March, the guest invites were the following.

Jessica powell – Researcher from Imperial College London
Ros cumberbatch – South London & Maudsley NHS trust carer lead for Southwark
Annette Davis – Carer peer, activist and BAME carer support.
Claire Parry – Psychotherapist leading on trust psycho therapy
Debika – SLaM Assistant Psychologist for Family and Carers Support in Southwark

Continue reading →

HSJ Award Ceremony 2019

HSJ Welcome and thanks for stopping by. This website aims to raise awareness of unpaid carers, like myself and also raise awareness of mental health. Hence the title of the site “A Caring Mind”. Recently I attended the exciting and prestigious HSJ award ceremony. I wanted to blog a fair bit of my experience there, especially from a carer’s perspective. Before I continue with my view of the ceremony, which was excellent, I want to mention a bit about HSJ Awards and its aim.

A bit of background on HSJ Awards

The HSJ Awards have been celebrating healthcare excellence for 39 years through huge political, technological and financial challenges within the sector. They have many partners, which are The Department of Health & Social carer, their leading partner Geometric Results INC, Lloyds Pharmacy, NHS Employers, Ministry of Defense, NHS England, Freedom to Speak up, NHS Charities together and many more.

Sorry I forgot to mention HSJ stands for Health Service Journal. The Health Service Journal is a news service which covers the National Health Service, healthcare management and health care policy. So you can tell what HSJ covers in regards to health is of major importance.

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The HSJ awards focused on several categories on that night to celebrate the hard work, innovation and dedication across the Health and Social care field.

The categories up for awards I have listed below.

Acute or Specialist Service Redesign Initiative Award
Acute or Specialist Trust of the Year
Acute Sector Innovation of the Year
Clinical Leader of the Year
Community or Primary Care Service Redesign
Connecting Services and Information Award
Driving Efficiency Through Technology Award
Freedom to Speak Up Organisation of the Year
Health and Local Government Partnership Award
HSJ Partnership of the Year
Mental Health Innovation of the Year
Mental Health Provider of the Year
Military and Civilian Health Partnership Award
Patient Safety Award
Primary Care Innovation of the Year
Reservist Support Initiative Award
Staff Engagement Award
System Leadership Initiative of the Year
System Led Support for Carers Award
Workforce Initiative of the Year

As you can tell, from the categories the awards reflected excellence on health services across the country.

My experience at the HSJ ceremony

The HSJ 2019 award ceremony took place at Evolution London, which was once known as Battersea Evolution. The building is massive and has seating up to 2,000 for dinners, I think i does hundreds of ceremonies a year as in conferences, exhibitions, award ceremonies and much more.

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You can find out more about the venue below.

https://batterseaevolution.co.uk/about/

If I was to sum up the ceremony, I felt most welcomed by everyone from experience of care team from NHS England, Carers UK and Carers Trust. They were all so important in the role that they do, even though they probably would be very humble about it. I felt honored to be there.

The food was excellent, the venue staff was very polite and the HSJ team especially Zara was fantastic. I was shocked they managed to get hold of actor James Nesbitt OBE to host the ceremony and I did not expect him to come out singing, James was very professional throughout the ceremony, because there was so many award categories to go through.

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I was also impressed he wore the #NHSThinkCarer band and actually spoke about it at the ceremony.

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Whats it means to a carer when a region wins that award

Going back to the HSJ Awards, I was fortunate enough to be one of the Judges for the Award category on “System Led Support for Carers Award”. I must admit judging the awards was fun, but challenging since the entries were very good, but to be honest my main drive for this blog is what does it mean for carer when a service wins such an award?

I did not really want to just do a description of the award event, I think anyone reading this especially healthcare providers should be interested on my thoughts. I think I wasn’t brought in to judge the entries because I am just a carer, I spend a lot of time engaging with mental health trusts, councils and CCG’s on carer welfare, policies and practices. I am sure some of them are fed up of me poking my nose into their business. Yet my focus is always on the unpaid carers where I am practically covering South London and expanding quickly.

If you look at my website you can see I have been raising awareness from 2014, but even before then I was involved raising awareness of unpaid carers. Its like I have nothing better to do but network carers together and speak as one.

My view on the system led support for Carers award is that it is a challenge to other systems to engages with unpaid carers. Any part of England’s health and social care field focusing on carers should not be a tick-box exercise.

I want to remind unpaid carers to take time and examine why West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership won that award. You can view the Case study in the link below.

https://www.hsj.co.uk/7026205.article

As a carer and an HSJ carer judge, I could not help but compare the entries to local or nearby carer focused systems. I had learnt a large amount of what works for carers and why.

I want to raise this to other unpaid carers that I network with as so to help educate unpaid them of the importance of awarding systems that involve and focus on unpaid carers to the highest standard.

My view is that West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership has thrown down the gauntlet for others to either follow or compete against, but it is not enough for local authorities to do this by following examples from winners. We need unpaid carers to also engage with local authorities and ask…what are you doing for us?

We need unpaid carers to be green with envy when they see how other unpaid carers are supported from HSJ winners and those that entered for that category. It might seem hard asking for carers to poke their noses into Local authority affairs, but why not?

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Does the Local authority seek to involve carers into their systems? Why are some Integrated care systems so quiet? What are they doing and who is leading them? How are carers identified in your area? Are you involved when it comes to Carer engagement? I think carers should find out who or what is running their carers programme and if it is either run of the mill or seeking to make an impact in unpaid carers lives.

The future

I want to see more entries in 2020 HSJ Awards for the carer category, just because pushing for unpaid carer welfare can be challenging, does not mean no one can do it.

I am sure some where out there, there is a region in England that has been quiet on carer engagement for too long and should not be hiding. I think those that entered for the award were all winners in my book and set the standard for others to follow.

Conclusion

I would like to thank everyone who has involved me so far and from my observation they all have unpaid carers at the heart of what they do. If the NHS was to fall over (god forbid), they still would be fighting hard for unpaid carer recognition.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I have not offended anyone apart from councils or districts who stay quiet on carers.

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Southwark MH Carers forum October 2019

untitled-2 Welcome back for the October update of the Southwark Mental Health Carers forum. Just so those to the blog understand. The term mental health carer does not mean the mental health of carers, it is a term to describe an unpaid carer supporting someone close who has mental health needs.

I would like to kindly thank Southwark CCG and Southwark Healthwatch in helping to advertise and publicise the carers forum.

The Southwark MH carers forum aims to allow unpaid carers to have a chance to understand and forum a relationship with mental health services in the borough of Southwark, we do not stop there. It is a right for unpaid carers to query health services and voice their opinions. Most members seek to understand why the social care and health services are the way they are. It does not help that the NHS changes rapidly and can be complex to adapt to local needs.

MH Forum 18-10-19-page-001

The Southwark Mental Health carers forum had engagement from Kings NHS mental health strategy lead Gavin Smith to explain his mental health strategy. We also had Rebecca Martland from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience attend to talk about her new study, plus we were hoping Zenette Abrahams could update us on Southwark Council’s carers strategy.

Before we continued on with the forum which runs from Southwark Carers. I noticed there was a lot of pictures and items on show. I had just caught the Southwark Carers Black History month exhibition and celebration, which was put on by one of the Southwark Carers Trustee. I spoke to her about the importance of Black history, which takes place in the month of October.

Just so you know Southwark Carers provides several services, one being the enabling service, which encompasses active listening, advocacy, signposting and support in tackling stressful issues outside of the caring role. The other being empowering carers with information and knowledge about their rights.

There were lots of photos on display regarding heros of black history and what it was like to live in those times. The CEO of Southwark Carers kindly showed me one of the costume cut outs.

We had a good turn out at the carers forum as I explained the agenda and unfortunately Gavin could not stay, but would be back again in future. I explained to the members of the forum as to why it was important to have a platform for carers to at least be interested on what their borough was doing for them. It should be a right for carers to come together and share what is working for them and what is not working.

The forum still needs to grow further so I have some work to do. I spoke on the updates provided by Southwark council in regards to the Carers Pathways Project Board. The Carers Pathways Project Board was established at the end of July, and work being undertaken around the carers pathway. I was given a contact to at least find out how the board was getting along. It is important carers be updated on what will be provided for them, rather than systems being designed where there is little or no carer input. It does not matter if it is bad news, but carers should know about it.

Next we had Rebecca talk about her project regarding improving physical health of patients on the inpatient wards. Basically they are starting a feasibility to see whether High intensity interval training (HIIT) might be acceptable and helpful for inpatients with Serious mental illness.

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Eligible patients who consent to take part would be randomly allocated to HIIT or to Treatment as usual. The HIIT involves alternating short bursts of high intensity exercise (1 minute intervals) with recovery periods of light exercise (90 second intervals) (Each session will take 11 minutes overall + warm-up and cool-down) and will take place in the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals on a stationary bike – People will be asked to attend for up to 12 weeks, even after their discharge, but they’ll start as inpatients.

The group discussed how important exercise is for those suffering mental ill health and felt physical health support was not focused on enough. Some members signed up to be part of Rebecca’s focus group.

I then updated members on the following being Guys & St Thomas carer’s policy and it means for both Kings NHS trust and Guys and St thomas NHS Trust.

I then updated the members about the Carers UK conference and what I spoke about at the conference, then I spoke about my visit to South West London & St George inpatient ward to speak to staff about carer involvement. I then spoke about the Lewisham CCG Mental Health stakeholder event with some members querying if Southwark CCG are doing something like that.

I then updated members regarding the carers support group and also that there will be a joint Southwark and Lambeth MH carers forum next month where MP Helen Hayes will be attending.

MP Helen Hayes

We then heard updates from members who attended the SLaM NHS Southwark Advisory group, where plans to redevelop a ward were shown, plus a few other updates. Some members also registered to be on Southwark’s carers members list.

For Black History month I will be speaking at St Andrews healthcare on a carers view of BAME inclusion in the NHS and will probably write a blog before then.

Overall the Southwark MH Carers forum was empowering and there is plenty of work to do to raise carer focus, awareness and empowerment in the borough of Southwark.

Triangle of Care – Learning from each other

Giving help Welcome back to another blog post from unpaid carer Matthew Mckenzie. I often blog about the situation many mental health carers face up and down the UK, however not only do i write about the caring journey, I get involved and take the initiative to network with many other unpaid carers supporting ‘loved ones’ with mental health needs.

I champion and praise many projects that work towards the good of the community, especially health care projects and the ones that take note of families and carers have my keen interest. One of these projects looks to create good practice and work towards culture change in regards to the carer journey. This policy is the called Triangle of Care, which I have blogged about a while back.

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The triangle of care works towards bringing together unpaid carers, carers’ centres, third sector organisations and mental health service providers to work together to insure best practice for mental health services.

When I attend triangle of care meetings I am often amazed at the dedication and work that many NHS mental health service providers share with each other. The lastest triangle of care meeting was hosted by Kent and Medway NHS trust over at Dartford, we were joined by many other NHS trusts where some already were members, while other are working towards joining, we also were joined by other other carers and third party community charities.

As a carer, I learnt so much about the work mental health trusts were doing and i am impressed to see many london NHS trusts attend and share knowledge about the work they do including Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Oxleas, South West London St Georges, Surry & Boarders NHS Trust, Berkshire NHS trust, the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and many more.

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One of the strong points of The triangle of care is self-assessments for existing service provision, this was achieved by Kent and Medway two years ago and I have learnt that KMPT has been awared their second star for for completing self-assessments for all community services (all mental health, learning disability, older people and dementia and substance misuse services). I would like to offer my congratulations to Kent and Medway NHS trust and hope they keep building on their success.

You can learn more about KMPT from their site https://www.kmpt.nhs.uk/

Plus feel free to check out Kent & Medways work on the triangle of care below.

https://www.kmpt.nhs.uk/carers/triangle-of-care/

Another strong point of the triangle of care is principles. Principles are usually things people can often try and remember and the triangle of care has six.

These being :

1) Carers and the essential role they play are identified at first contact or as soon
as possible thereafter.

2) Staff are ‘carer aware’ and trained in carer engagement strategies.

3) Policy and practice protocols re confidentiality and sharing information are in place.

4) Defined post(s) responsible for carers are in place.

5) A carer introduction to the service and staff is available, with a relevant range of information across the acute care pathway.

6) A range of carer support services is available

More details can be found on the triangle of care below.

No one is saying such principles are easy to achieve and a lot of hard work and dedication has gone into culture change in the mental health services. We need input from all involved being staff, patient and carers.

You can learn more about the triangle of care here.

https://carers.org/article/triangle-care

One thing I want to note is that every time I attend such meetings, I have always felt I managed to contribute as a carer, especially since I network and hold forums with other carers in South London, I feel us carers can work together and feel part of the system, rather than battling the system.

I look forward to the next Triangle of Care meeting hosted by South West London st Georges NHS trust.

One last thing to mention is we are due to hear some exciting news from the Royal College of Nursing and I hope carers will be a strong focus point in the work they will do.

I would like to thank KPMT for letting me use the photos and well done Kent and Medway NHS trust for their 2nd award.

Happy Nurses day 2019 everyone.

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