Monthly Newsletter of Camden Mental Health Consortium |
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ISSUE 57 |
MAY 2002 |
If user involvement is really going to mean anything to those who use the services rather than to the small group of people who have the time and inclination to become involved in meetings and consultations, it must have a different focus. Of course, it is important to ensure that things are fully discussed and that there is proper consultation about developments and changes. It is certainly important for people to be fully informed. But it is equally if not more important that people are treated properly and well in decent conditions; that the walls and the floors are clean; that the food is of good quality, varied, well-prepared and served; and that there are clean sheets on the beds. No amount of involvement can be considered to be effective until these humane criteria are met, and all the policy decisions in the world will be ineffective if patients cannot sleep at night because there is too much noise or no pillow on the bed.
As a memorial to the late Kate Smyth, who was General Manager of Mental Health Services at The Royal Free Hospital, an Associate Member and supporter of CMHC, the Inner Cities Mental Health Group set up a ‘Making a Difference’ award. Camden Mental Health Consortium is especially proud that the first winner of this award was Andie Triantafillou, the Jules Thorn Patients’ Representative. Andie works tirelessly for the Jules Thorn Patients and has been instrumental in many developments there. She is also the author of the Dictionary of Abbreviations which we are currently producing. CMHC offers its heartfelt congratulations to Andie on this well-deserved recognition of her work and hopes that she will continue ‘Making a Difference’. INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION Last year CMHC received a Health Action Zone Grant of five thousand pounds to help develop The Camden Bugle and some of this money has been invested in new equipment and some of it in a makeover for The Bugle. One of the other uses that this money has been put to is in extending the circulation of our newsletter to Islington. We now send copies to service users, organisations and professionals in Islington. Our current circulation is around one thousand copies each month. The Camden Bugle and the new Service User Information Website are complementary projects, linking together the two strands of Information and Communication which have regularly come out of meetings where service users have been asked what they want and what they need. One of CMHC’s targets for this year is to see that everyone who comes into contact with the mental health services knows we exist and what we do. We are arranging for our information leaflet to be provided in the first introduction that people receive. We spend a lot of time and money on publicity and it is hard to believe that people do not know about us, but we want to ensure that is true.
THANKS CMHC would like to thank the HAZ (Health Action Zone) Board for its donation of five thousand pounds (£5 000) towards the development of a CMHC Service User Information website. This project now has a total funding of ten thousand pounds and we expect that during the next year we will be using service users to help us collect the information which will eventually appear on this site. We have already made some additions to the current CMHC website which provide more information, and we will continue to extend these links as we work on the new site. ISLINGTON NEWS So much that goes on in the two boroughs of Camden and Islington relate to the general improvement in user engagement that we hope that one further development will be greater input into The Camden Bugle from Islington. As a first step, we will regularly carry reports from Angela Hall who is the Islington Service User Co-ordinator and works closely with our own CMHC/CBUG Co-ordinator, John Lavery. Form next month, The Bugle will also carry reports from the Camden & Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust. Two Assistant Locality Directors, Stuart McMullen and Jackie Drury will be responsible for the Trust input. NEW POSTS In the first week of June, the Care Trust will be interviewing for its three new Director posts – Directors of Mental Health for Camden and Islington and a Director of Social Care. Even when these new posts are filled, there will not be an immediate change to the Trust’s management structure because it has been agreed that the present management positions should be frozen for a year. So, the Director of Mental Health for Camden will sit at the top of a pyramid which already has Locality Directors for North and South Camden (although both of these are currently temporary posts) and a number of Assistant Locality Directors. Islington currently has permanent Locality Directors for North and South Islington, with a number of Assistant Locality Directors. The Director of Social Care is a brand new post and it is particularly relevant for service-user involvement since it will assume the lead on this. CMHC HELPLINE From 5 June, CMHC will be offering its new Helpline service to offer telephone advice to service users on a variety of issues. The Helpline number will be 020 7419 4197 and it will run on Wednesdays from 11.00 – 3.30 pm, when Linda Polan will be available to answer calls. The purpose of the service is to provide advice and information and there will not be a provision for people to come into the office to discuss their queries – the service will be telephone only. This is another initiative that we are testing to see if there is a demand for the service and if there is, can CMHC meet it. It will be evaluated over a six-month period to see whether we should continue it. CMHC MID-SUMMER DISCO & PARTY Over the past couple of years CMHC has run a number of social events, and mid-Summer’s day this year has been chosen as an appropriate date to hold a Party/Disco. From 8.00 pm to late on 21st June at The Irish Centre, 52 Camden Square, CMHC will be holding a Party and Disco with free buffet food and soft drinks and DJ Hugh spinning the discs from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s and any CDs that people may choose to bring along. CMHC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The preparations are being made for the CMHC AGM on Tuesday, 30 July. The meeting will be held in the Sir William Wells Atrium at The Royal Free Hospital from 6.00 – 8.30 pm. The guest speaker this year will be Rogan Wolf, who is involved in the user movement. After the meeting there will be a buffet meal and drinks. CMHC ANNUAL SERVICE USERS CONFERENCE This year’s Mental Health Service Users Conference will be held on Wednesday, 27 November at Hampstead Town Hall from 1.00 pm. The topic for the day will be Crisis Houses. We hope to hear about some of the models that are in use in various parts of the country, besides hearing an update on where we are with the Camden Crisis House.
The Care Trust’s Service User Involvement Strategy Consultation document was the subject for the April SCUF. Sue Balmer, who is leading on this subject until the Director of Social Care is appointed, came along to listen to people’s views. Tuesday, 28 May will bring Anees Al-Mushadani, a pharmacist from St Pancras Hospital to talk about ‘Medication’. In the past, this has been one of the most popular topics for meetings. The attendance at this meeting will also tell us whether advertising meetings in The Camden New Journal has added numbers. In June, SCUF will be looking at the Care Programme Approach (CPA) - what it means and how it works. People often tell us that they do not understand their Care Plans and/or that some of the elements of the Plan have not been delivered. This meeting should provide an opportunity to look at these issues. There is no July meeting for SCUF because it would clash with the CMHC Annual General Meeting. In August, we are hoping to invite the newly appointed Trust Director of Social Care to talk about the future of user engagement within the Care Trust.
Sue Balmer had a busy month in Camden consulting on the User Involvement Strategy, and she was the speaker at the May NCUF. Consultation on this document will continue until the end of June, then a Care Trust User Involvement Strategy will be developed and published and this will be the subject of a further period of consultation before an amended version is adopted by the Trust as its User Involvement Strategy. The importance of this document is that it will be the central theme of the way the Care Trust undertakes user involvement The next NUCF meeting on Tuesday, 11 June will have North Camden’s Welfare Rights Worker, Ros Barun, talking on the subject of ‘Benefits’. In the past, meetings on this topic have been among the best attended. Many people want to see the notes made on them by Hospitals and Social Services Departments. July’s NCUF will deal with ‘Seeing Your Records’ – what you can and cannot see and how you gain access. CMHC OPEN SUPPORT GROUP The last of the present Open Support Groups will be held at the Community Health Council, 197 Kentish Town Road, NW5 on Monday, 17 June from 6.00 – 7.30 pm. The thirteen sessions of this group come to an end with mixed reviews. The group has been highly valued by those who have attended and its conductor, Tony, is always well regarded, but there has not been the attendance to justify its continuation. This is the second time that CMHC has tried an Open Support Group and on both occasions the attendance failed to allow CMHC to spend money in continuing it. For those who valued the therapeutic nature of the group, we would hope that therapy is available within the Care Trust or at The Tavistock Centre; for those who liked the social opportunity, we will try and think of another solution. CAMDEN COUNCIL’s MENTAL HEALTH LIAISON GROUP Now that the local Council elections are over, the business of Council can begin again and the Mental Health Liaison Group will meet at 6.00 pm on Thursday, 13 June at West Hampstead Day Hospital (Fordwych House). This is a foray into parts of the Borough then many people do not get to! The first topic on the Agenda will be the election of a new Chair for the Group. The main discussion point will be the Care Trust’s Service User Involvement Strategy. Sue Balmer will come along to present the document – copies of which are widely available. Some of the points that have arisen are:
Several people thought that the point that treatment is the point at which user involvement should start. If patients are not being involved in their own care, which is fundamental, then there is something wrong with trying to involve them elsewhere.
Each month, John Lavery, the CMHC/CBUG Co-ordinator, will report on the work that he is doing. A great deal has happened since I started at CMHC. As the work of CMHC is constant, it has been necessary for me to be ‘thrown in at the deep end’ in relation to much of the work. On my second day we had the North Camden User Forum, and the week after was the Open Meeting of CBUG. Since then there has been both a South and North Camden User Forum and an ordinary CBUG meeting. The Care Trust’s Service-User Involvement Strategy Discussion Document was the main focus for each of them. This consultation will continue to be an important issue for Camden users, and any comments about it can be sent to me. The deadline is 28th June. I have also been involved in producing the ‘Camden Bugle’, the mid-month mailouts, and helping to maintain the flow of information from the office out to the membership. In order that we can keep everyone informed of developments and proposals that affect service provision, and keep user issues on the agenda within the Trust, I have attended many ‘Trust’ meetings. I have also started to develop links with other local Providers. I have analysed the many meetings that I could go to and will be concentrating on the most relevant in the future. Recruitment to CMHC and CBUG is an important part of my work, and I have started a programme of visiting the facilities in Camden to meet users and inform people of the work of CMHC & CBUG. One of the most exciting aspects of my job is going to be the development of CBUG as a force in user involvement. We still need more people who want to be actively involved in this new group. The new CBUG projects seem likely to attract further interest. CMHC is already highly regarded as a positive force for change in the borough, and CBUG will help to take this further. To this end we are starting an extra monthly meeting for CBUG members and me to concentrate on dealing with the increasing amount of work that is coming our way. I am currently looking at the possible training opportunities for members. I am looking forward to helping CMHC and CBUG to improve and expand on the excellent work that is already being done in the cause of user involvement in Camden.
Angela Hall is the Service User Involvement Co-ordinator for Islington. Here she writes an introduction to her new regular column about her work – her column with John’s Diary will help to explain the various developments in user engagement across the District. I have been in the post since February 2002, and prior to my appointment, I have been a Service User myself. There are so many exciting user-run and user-led initiatives going on in both Camden and Islington at the moment, including training for Service Users in the Recruitment and Selection of Staff, User Focused Monitoring.I have been spending my early days finding out about these, and meeting with various people involved in the mental health world. I am delighted to have been offered a regular space in the Bugle to be able to update and share with you all that’s going on in the mental health scene. I look forward to writing in future issues, and in the meantime you are welcome to contact me to find out more about user involvement. You can phone me on 0207 530 2744 or write to me at 60 Bath Street, LONDON, EC1V 9DP, or you can e-mail me at angela.hall@cichs-tr.nthames.nhs.uk USER ADVISORY GROUP NEWS The Mental Health User Advisory continues to thrive. This enlarged and well-attended group now meets monthly. The May meeting heard from Care Trust’s Director of Projects, Dean Longford, that the development of the new Highgate Wing is both on budget and on target for completion in 2003. Mary O’Leary from the Patient Advice & Liaison Service came to tell the meeting about their work helping patients and relatives. This new service is getting out and about to meet the patients and carers that it is designed to serve. The Group heard from Jackie Drury the welcome news that £30 000 has been allocated to user involvement across the Trust.
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