At the recent ‘Partnerships in Mental Health’ conference, the large service-user contingent from around the country recognised the need to work together if their input was really going to be effective in changing things. Instead of thinking in single group terms the service-user partnership needs to consider what its joint aims are and how as a movement it sets about achieving them. In North London, there are service user groups in Barnet, Haringey, Enfield and Brent as well as locally the fledgling Islington Borough User Group (IBUG) and Camden Mental Health Consortium (CMHC) and its active arm the Camden Borough User Group (CBUG). All these groups tend to act independently even though the issues facing service users, the group members, are the same. How much stronger and more effective would they be if they worked together for the common cause? A confederation of this type would have a much stronger voice and more influence and would be able to achieve more for the service-users they represent.
For several years now, users of the mental health services and their supporters in Camden have been asking for a Crisis House - an alternative to hospital where people who are in crisis can go and be cared for until they recover. There has been wide support for this proposal, originally championed by Councillor Penny Abraham. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to find a suitable property within the Borough which could be converted and would provide the space required. The hunt continues. When things are found to be difficult, they are sometimes regarded as being impossible and other uses are quickly found for the money. We must not let this happen to the Camden Crisis House. It is an important provision which is lacking in Camden although there are two in our next-door neighbour, Islington. Camden wants it; Camden needs it and we expect to achieve it. WHAT ABOUT THE BILL? In the Queen’s Speech for the opening of the new session of Parliament, there was no mention of the Mental Health Bill. The consultation had led to almost universal dissatisfaction with the proposals contained in the draft document, and only the week before a joint parliamentary committee of peers and MPs had expressed concerns that certain aspects of the Bill might be in conflict with the Human Rights Act. Has this bill, which has been in the proposal stage for a number of years now, been abandoned or are its main proposals going to be rethought? No. In a recent speech, Alan Milburn, Secretary of State for Health, made it clear that he intends to introduce the Bill at an early stage in this new parliamentary session. It begins to look as if the Department of Health has taken the perverse view that ‘if everyone is against it, this is what we ought to do’. Happily, Bills do not become law just because the government wants them to. The governed have a say too!
CAMDEN COUNCIL’s JOINT LIAISON GROUP There will be a Liaison Group Joint Event on Monday, 25 November in the Council Chamber at Camden Town Hall to consult on ‘Fair Access to Care Services’. The event lasts from 5.00 – 8.00 pm and will conclude with supper with the Mayor of Camden. This important issue is also being considered at the South Camden User Forum on Tuesday, 26 November from 5.00 – 6.30 pm at Jules Thorn Day Unit. CARE TRUST BOARD MEETINGS The November meeting of the Camden Mental Health & Social Care Trust Board has been cancelled. The December meeting will take place on Thursday, 19 December at St Pancras Conference Centre. Care Trust Board meetings are open to the public and we would encourage as many people as possible to attend. Papers may be obtained from Kate Wilkins on 020 7445 8427 or by e-mail kate.wilkins@cimhscaretrust.nhs.uk BENEFITS SEMINAR Bruce Buckmaster, the Care Trust’s User Employment Officer, will be holding a further seminar on payments for service-users involved in Care Trust business on Tuesday, 10 December from 2.00 – 5.00 pm at ‘The Hoo’, 17 Lyndhurst Gardens, London NW3. If you wish to attend then please contact Mary Atakli on 020 7530 2713. PRE-CHRISTMAS PARTY CMHC will be holding a Pre-Christmas Party and Disco at the London Irish Centre in Camden Square from 8.00 pm until late on Friday, 29 November. This will be an opportunity for people to get in the mood for the festive season with free food and soft drinks, a pay bar and disco music from the Royal Free Music Station. Do come along and enjoy yourself with an opportunity to win some spot prizes in the form of Sainsbury’s gift vouchers. Once again, we need to thank Hugh Sturrock for his efforts in arranging this. CAMDEN ANNUAL SERVICE USERS CONFERENCE This year’s Annual Service Users’ Conference will be held at Hampstead Town Hall on Wednesday, 27 November. The meeting will commence at 1.00 pm with a buffet meal which is being prepared for us by New Directions Camden’s Chameleon Catering Project. This is another example of partnership. The meeting will be chaired by Dr John Carrier who is the Chair of Camden Primary Care Trust, which will plays a significant role in commissioning mental health services. The subject of the meeting will be ‘Dealing With A Crisis’ and it will be hearing from the local Crisis Teams and people who have used them. There will also be presentation from a number of Crisis Houses. From these we will try and establish what sort of service model would be most favoured by service users in Camden. This is an important meeting intended to keep the Crisis House which the Borough’s service users have so long campaigned for high on the agenda and to try and see what the current position is and how it can be taken forward to produce the desired result – a Crisis House for Camden. CMHC CHRISTMAS MEETING/PARTY This year we will once again be holding our Christmas Meeting/Party at the St Pancras Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital. The meeting this year will be looking at User Focussed Monitoring (UFM) and the prospects for taking it forward into a tool for evaluation of services and developing the sort of services that users want. The meeting will be followed by a buffet and drinks and there will be raffle prizes for CMHC members to win. CHRISTMAS CLOSING CMHC will be closed over the Christmas holiday from Friday, 20 December until Monday, 6 January. The Christmas Bugle will be produced in the week beginning 16 December and we hope to include with it details of all the services that are available to people over the holiday period, including the times and the criteria for access to them. The first meeting in 2003 will be the North Camden User Forum on Tuesday, 7 January from 3.00 – 6.30 pm, when the subject will be ‘The Media & Mental Health’.
Kath McClinton, Joint Commissioner MH Accommodation (Acting), offers a brief summary of the Draft Accommodation Strategy for Camden Islington. Copies of the full document or the executive summary are available from Kath at 79 Camden Road, London NW1 9ES, kath.mcclinton@camden.gov.uk or 020 7974 6717 The draft strategy provides an update on the original Accommodation Review (1999) and covers both the ex-Friern projects and other residential care provided by the statutory and non-statutory sector, rehabilitation provision and supported tenancies. The strategy highlights gaps in current services, identifies commissioning priorities for the next three years and provides information about available funding. Much of the strategy provides information about national and local changes that have taken place since the original review. Nationally, the most significant change has been the introduction of the ‘Supporting People’ programme, which comes into effect in April 2003. This means that many of the Borough’s housing support services (for example hostels, supported tenancies) will be commissioned and funded by the Supporting People Commissioning bodies (a partnership of Health, Social Services, Housing and Probation) rather than Health and Social Services. Locally, there have been many changes in service provision including the planned closure of four residential homes in North Camden; the development and expansion of highly supported tenancies in Camden and Islington through the New Routes and Cornwallis schemes; the bedding down of Crisis and Assertive Outreach teams; the establishment of the Accommodation Team working across Camden and Islington; the recommissioning of residential care for older people with mental health needs and the improved co-ordination of rehabilitation provision. Information from a variety of sources about unmet need across Camden and Islington indicates the priorities for investment are highly supported tenancies, long term 24-hour care, move-through community rehabilitation facilities, MHCOP extra-sheltered support and long term low secure provision. The level of funding for next year is not yet known and how the money is spent will be determined by how much we receive.
Linda Polan, well-known in the local user involvement world and the Leader of Linda’s Buglers, the team that collates, assembles and envelopes The Camden Bugle each month, gives her view on a piece of the advocacy jigsaw which is not yet in place. ADVOCACY in the COMMUNITY Five years ago I started working as a Mental Health Advocate for ASSERT, Islington’s Mental Health Advocacy Project; the work routinely took place in the community and on the wards of the Waterlow Unit. New advocates could choose where to begin their practice and I opted for the community. ASSERT appointed me to Islington Day Centres & Residences where advocacy had been requested. At that time, Camden had no such project. One of the Trust’s Meetings to which I and other Service Users were invited to contribute was called the Service Users’ Reference Group and among the topics put before the group was “Priorities for Advocacy – Hospital or Community?” I made the case for advocacy in the community helping to keep people out of hospital but the group, aware that funds were not limitless, opted for advocacy on the wards. This decision was not preventative to community advocacy and I continued to provide the service. In 2001 Camden instigated an advocacy service for in-patients but provided nothing for users on the outside. I have often been requested by Camden users to advocate for them on a free-lance basis in the community, but without an organisational base for support this is a very difficult task. Personal, special insurance and clinical supervision would have to be identified and purchased; funds for office equipment, stationery etc would have to be provided and to whom would such a free-lance worker be answerable? Camden's current commitment to out-reach and crisis must now ensure that Advocacy in the Community is re-addressed.
Hari Sewell, Director of Social Care gives a review of the month’s events within Camden & Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust. Hari may be contacted at Care Trust Headquarters, 2nd-floor, East Wing, St Pancras Hospital, London NW1 0PE, by telephone on 020 7530 6303 or by e-mail hari.sewell@cimhscaretrust.nhs.uk A three-day Partnership in Mental Health conference took place in Harrogate in the last week of October. Camden and Islington was well represented by Care Trust staff, representatives of Voluntary organisations, the Police and a number of service users. The three-day conference was part of a project in which organisations from across the country share good practice and discuss how best local partners can work together. Somerset, Tyne Tees and Leicester mental health professionals and users also attended the event to share their ideas. The event was run in ‘Open Space’ style - meaning participants were able to choose the subjects they wished to discuss and they facilitated their own groups. Topics ranged from ‘Pooled Budgets’ to ‘What are the barriers to effective service-user involvement’. Delegates were free to drop in on these discussions, contribute and take away any points of good practice. All the feedback was then collected into a pack, which was produced as the event took place and distributed before everyone left on the last day. Delegates from Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust found experience of working together as a group, with our main partners very positive. It showed how well we could get on both professionally and socially. It also enabled us locally to recognise just how far advanced we are as a Care Trust compared with other areas. Meanwhile, back in Camden and Islington on the evening of 28th October the Care Trust hosted a Twinning event. The Care Trust is twinned with the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust as part of a Government initiative to promote shared learning. The evening ended up being a celebration of local talent and an opportunity for staff, service users, carers and voluntary and statutory sector partners to meet in an informal setting. Colleagues from Manchester were unable to attend the event because of transport difficulties, following the weekend of rough weather conditions. Music and poetry interspersed a few presentations about the twinning initiative. Art and good food helped to make the evening a resounding success. In Camden there have been a number of recent appointments. In North Camden a ward manager has been appointed to Nicol Ward, who hopes to start early in 2003. There were also three social workers appointed to the Community Mental Health Teams, two in the North and one South. And this week the Royal Free are interviewing for Ward Housekeepers for each of its wards – a key post for the improvement of the ward environments. The London Development Centre for Mental Health (LDCMH) held a meeting on 29th October inviting service users from across London to discuss/establish a London wide User Reference Group/User Council. This group would be supported by the LDCMH to work closely with the Steering Group of the User/Survivor Standards Project (London). The day was well attended by service users from across London. If anyone would like to find out more about this initiative you can contact Angela Hall, or Brendan McLoughlin who is facilitating the initiative on 020 7725 5525. The new St Luke's Patients' Council continues to meet and have agreed to meet every 2 weeks up until December, by which time it will have hopefully established its direction and the areas on which to focus over the next year. If anyone is interested in joining the St Luke's Patients' Council please call Angela Hall for more information. David Oliver and Claire Ward-Thornton from Islington Music Forum will be holding weekly concerts / poetry sessions at the Waterlow Unit, every Wednesday afternoon between 2 and 4 pm. This initiative is sponsored by Lloyds TSB and the 'Tune In' will officially be launched on Wednesday, 4th December, at the Waterlow Unit from 2pm. The Mayor and Chief Executive of the Care Trust will be present at the launch. If any service users would like to come to this event please contact either David or Claire on 020 7530 2209 for further details. Mental health services nationally were invited support service users in taking photographs, which represent their “journey of recovery”. One service user from Camden and Islington returned images that have now been sent to a national panel, who will judge which of the national submissions, will be part of an exhibition/publication. The Care Trust’s Director of Social Care is part of Social Perspectives Network. This is a national network that seeks to promote social models in mental health. The meeting on 11th November in Birmingham stimulated much discussion about placing value on service users’ experience. The learning will inform the Director of Social Care’s contributions to the Care Trust.
The October meeting of the South Camden User Forum brought Charlene Edwards to talk about The Bridge Project which she manages. The project, which has been running for a number of years, provides support to African, Caribbean and Bengali service users. It was a great shame that this presentation, which was well received, drew such a small audience. Whenever this happens, we have to think again about the continuation of the SCUF. The SCUF meeting on Tuesday, 26 November will bring Charlotte Pomery to talk about the important topic of ‘Fair Access to Care Services’. This long and benevolent sounding title heralds some major changes to the accessibility criteria for services. This will be the last SCUF for this year, but we will be holding meetings again throughout 2003. The first one will be on Tuesday, 21st January and will have as its subject ‘Faith & Mental Health’. NORTH CAMDEN USER FORUM (NCUF) Mary O’Leary and her colleague came to the November NCUF meeting to talk about the PALS (Patient Advice & Liaison Service). This is a fairly new development which aims to try and resolve problems for service users and their carers. Mary has also visited the SCUF and is likely to be a regular presenter at these meetings to talk about the problems that she deals with and the successes that she manages to achieve. On Tuesday, 3 December from 5.00 – 6.30 pm in Room 20 in the psychotherapy corridor on level 2 at The Royal Free Hospital, North Camden User Forum will consider the ways of ‘Surviving Christmas’. For some people Christmas is a joyous time with the family and all the trappings. For others it is a time when all these things are so clearly absent and missed. In either case, there are usually problems about surviving the period – the excesses or the loneliness and feeling of being outside it. It is always a time of crowds and rush. We hope that people will come along and share the techniques that they have developed for coping with Christmas. The first NCUF meeting of 2003 will be on Tuesday, 7 January and will have as its subject ‘The Media & Mental Health’.
The Camden Borough User Group is about to celebrate its first birthday. It was launched in November 2001. However, this does not do justice to the work and thought that went into this as the way to improve and develop user involvement in Camden. The launch was well-attended and the future of the group was talked about as important. Like most things, the work then started. Several people were interested in becoming members of CBUG and some of them have continued with it and are still part of the core group of six people who are doing the work. Other people dropped away; new members joined. We recruited and then lost a co-ordinator. This was disruptive to the progress of the group but we were fortunate in persuading Nicky Coombes, our fundraiser and consultant to take on the temporary role until we are able to recruit again and she continues to do a great job. At the end of a year we have a hard working group of people who are committed to the project and who in turn the project has promised to train, support and reward. This part of it seems to be going well and CBUG is currently in the middle of its first real piece of work, an audit of user involvement in Camden and Islington. The work with service users is being complemented by information from the service providers. This is important since it will provide a picture of what is happening currently and the strengths and weaknesses. It should enable the planning of work and investment for the future. CBUG members are about to be trained for selection and recruitment of staff for the Care Trust and this will provide an increased pool of service users who can be called on to sit on interview panels and give the user perspective on the candidates for the job. We look to see that this will mean that in future the recruitment to more of the Care Trust’s posts will have been with service-user involvement. CBUG Members have recognised that the group needs more people if they are to successfully carry out more tasks – CBUG wants to be involved in the auditing of the Mind in Camden Advocacy Service at The Royal Free Hospital. It has produced its own presentation which it is roadshowing at different venues to recruit further people to the group. There will be a CBUG meeting on Wednesday, 18 December at Hampstead Town Hall when we will be looking at the achievements of CBUG over the year, planning the future and celebrating its successes.
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