The last year seems to have been one of great change but little real achievement. There has been an increase in the levels of user involvement but there is always the question ‘on whose terms?’ It often seems as if the whole purpose of the process is to bring about change, but to what effect? It may be an illusion where change becomes the main reason for doing things an end in itself. Things happen so fast that it is hard to judge whether there are any benefits. Before they can be evaluated, the world has moved on again. The Care Trust’s Service User Involvement Strategy is one of these pieces of change, although it seems to have stumbled quite a lot on its route and the financial position may yet make its implementation difficult. It may change the nature of user involvement but will it change the numbers involved? It may be liked by senior management and the Trust Board but will it be accepted and implemented by staff at ward level? The Patients’ Forums are now up and running (starting on 1st December 2004) and they would seem to augur more involvement within organisations like the Care Trust, but how will this happen and what role will they really play? None of this is clear. It’s a change and therefore it’s bound to change other things, but how? Next year there will be a brand new mental hospital with the opening of the Highgate Mental Health Centre and this will provide state-of-the-art facilities for Islington residents. (How long will Camden have to wait for a similar facility?) It may be an improvement in the conditions in which in-patients are treated, but it will not change the nature of the treatment. Change is not an end in itself and we should not allow it to become so. The problem is that if you persuade people that it is the end then the effects do not seem to matter. A SPECIAL THANK YOU CMHC would like to say ‘thank you’ to our member and local artist Danny Carmody who generously donated the pictures which appear on our Christmas cards this year.
BYE FOR NOW Katrina Anderson is leaving Camden Social Services to take up a secondment to Newham. Katrina has worked with CMHC on a number of projects. We would like to thank her for her all her input and hope that she returns soon. BEST VALUE REVIEW We have previously advertised that the service user consultation of the Best Value Review would be launched with an Open Meeting at ‘the Hoo’ on Thursday, 8th January. For a number of reasons, we have had to cancel that meeting, and the launch will now take place in February. CAMDEN LIT The first full meeting of Camden’s National Service Framework Local Implementation Team took place on 9th December and service users were well represented. This new group suffered from all the old teething troubles of the length of the meeting, the amount of paper and the way in which reports are written. However, all these points were made and it is hoped that they will not occur again at future meetings. CHRISTMAS CLOSING Interchange Studios closes for the Christmas period on Friday, 19th December and re-opens on Monday, 5th January, 2004. The CMHC office will be closed throughout this period. CHRISTMAS MEETING/PARTY This year’s Christmas Meeting and Party was held at the St Pancras Conference Centre on Friday, 12th December. This year the meeting was also intended to serve as a Special General Meeting for the election of further Trustees to CMHC. The Constitution allows for four Honorary Officers and eight Trustees and currently there are only five of those eight. There were therefore three vacancies. In the past it has always proved extremely difficult to recruit new Trustees and the nomination of four people proved a position which we were unable to deal with on the night. There needed to be a secret ballot and there was no provision for this at that point. The meeting was formally adjourned to a date to be fixed in the New Year when there will be formal nominations and the opportunity to hold the required secret ballot if there are more than there candidates. Formal notification will be sent out at least twenty eight days before the date of the meeting. Peter Horn is the Chief Executive of the London Development Centre for Mental Health and he came along to talk about the Development Centre and its work over the last year and its hopes for the year to come. There were many questions for Peter, several of them asking whether user involvement did actually make and difference. The discussion was one which indicated that it should be carried out for a longer period at another time when people will have the opportunity to ask all the questions that they would wish to. We will try and arrange such a meeting in 2004. After all this there was the raffle and then the food and drink. It seemed that a good time was had by all and we expect to do it all again next year. CAMDEN COUNCIL’S MENTAL HEALTH LIAISON GROUP The last meeting of the Mental Health Liaison Group of this year was held at The Highgate Centre. This meeting was Chaired by Councillor Janet Guthrie in the absence of Councillor John Rolfe and proved to be interesting and quite lively. In comparison with some of the 2003 meetings of the MHLG this one was well-attended and there were quite a few service users. The Best Value Review of Mental Health Day Services, although only an issue for update, took up quite a long part of the meeting. This is clearly an issue for several of the service users and voluntary sector attendees; and how it is going to happen and the timeframe need to be clear. There was an undertaking that clarification would be provided and soon. The main business of the meeting was mental health in Primary Care and some of the usual points about GPs views on mental-health problems were raised again. There is now a Primary Mental Health Care Strategy out for consultation and it is hoped that this will make the provision of mental health care at GP level much more effective. The group will meet next on Thursday, 9th April 2004.
The two User Forums are among the central features of the work that CMHC does. They have been in existence for four years now. They meet monthly and usually listen to a presentation on a current mental-health issue and then hold a discussion. They are made more social occasions through the provision of food and drink. The North Camden User Forum (NCUF) meets from 5.00 – 6.30 pm in Room 20 in the Psychotherapy Corridor on Level 2 at The Royal Free Hospital (near Psychiatry Out-patients) usually on the first Tuesday of each month. The last meeting of the year in December took as its topic ‘Surviving Christmas’ and there was a general discussion about a time which is for some people happy and for others difficult and miserable. The commerciality is clearly a problem for a group of people that are not well off and thus feel more left out. In the end, it was clear that people do have strategies for dealing with a time that often increases the mental-health difficulties. He South Camden Forum (SCUF) usually meet from 5.00 – 6.30 pm on the last Tuesday of each month in The St Pancras Conference Centre, West Wing, St Pancras Hospital. The November meeting on ‘Secure & Forensic Services’ was cancelled because the speaker was unable to attend. Both NCUF and SCUF have a full programme throughout 2004. The first CMHC Meeting of the year will be on Tuesday, 6th January with NCUF, when Werner Valentin from CASA will be coming to talk about ‘Double Trouble – Mental Health and Drug & Alcohol Problems’. SCUF will hold its first meeting in 2004 on Tuesday, 27th January when Professor Roland Littlewod will come along to talk about ‘Psychopathology & Creativity’ Although they are called ‘User Forums’, they are open to anyone who would like to attend and contribute and the ‘South’ and ‘North’ parts of the titles refer to where they are rather than the group that they are intended for. We hope that they will be welcoming of all comers and if anyone is hesitant about attending then they should give CMHC a call on 020 7419 4196 and we will arrange for you to be met properly and introduced to the group. We try and cover as wide a range of topics as possible, always including some old favourites, but if people have particular topics they would like as subjects then they should let us know by telephoning CMHC or e-mailing administrator@cmhc.org.uk
This event is now in its fourth year and this year was held again at Hampstead Town Hall on the afternoon of Wednesday, 27th November. The subject was ‘Mental Health Advocacy’. The intention of the afternoon was to look at both the provision of advocacy, the gaps in that provision and the models employed. Added to this were the interfaces with other services, PALS and ICAS in particular and what the future was likely to be. The local advocacy providers are Mind in Camden which provides independent advocates on the in-patient wards at The Royal Free Hospital and a GP Advocacy Service; Mind in Islington which provides a service at The Huntley Centre, and ASSERT which provides a service at The Waterlow Unit and St Luke’s Hospital, Woodside. These three providers all form part of AIM which is the local advocacy partnership. It was AIM which provided an insight into the level and types of advocacy that are available in Camden and Islington and how they are mainly restricted to the in-patient wards. This point led naturally to the gaps in provision in the community and for specific groups such as the elderly with mental-health problems and a dedicated service for black and ethnic minorities and non-english speakers. The PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) originally had ‘Advocacy’ in its title. It interfaces with the Advocacy Services at points and there are clearly cross-references but it has a different role and is not independent from the Care Trust. The new service is ICAS (Independent Complaints Advocacy Service) which is intended to do very much what it says and assist people with complaints. However, it is relatively new and does not seem to be well-staffed so a review of its work will have to wait for some time. Di Barnes is a researcher at Durham University and has done a lot of work, including advising the government, in the field of advocacy. She talked about the plurality of provision and how this is both a strength and a weakness. She certainly thought that the provision of advocacy across a variety of fields had grown, was growing and was likely to continue to do so and with this growth had come recognition of its value. So much was this the case that statutory provision of advocacy was one of the few parts of the draft mental health bill that was welcomed. There was still much to do and partnerships and standard setting were an important part of this process. The other big factor was the cost and how it would be met. In order to provide a proper independent advocacy service with professional paid advocates, there needed to be national funding and recognition and a proper accreditation system.
2003 has been a busy year for the Camden Borough User Group and 2004 begins to look as if it may be even busier. The New Year starts off with CBUG playing a key role in the Best Value Review Consultation and already it is making plans for this and trying to establish how the widest range of user views can be collected and fed in. There is some respite since the process looks likely to now start in February rather January. To end the year, CBUG will hold its Christmas Meeting/Party on Wednesday, 17th December, when it will meet with the members of the Islington Borough User Group to review successes and failures during the last twelve months and consider the prospects for collaboration next year. Camden Council’s Mental Health Liaison Group The December meeting of the Mental Health Liaison Group was held at the Highgate Centre with a very good audience, although there was a real shortage of Councillors and none of the Non-executive Directors from the Care Trust. The service users outnumbered the professionals, with some well-known faces present, and this is a welcome sign that the MHLG may be returning to its old form . It considered an update on the Best Value Review of Mental Health Day Service Provision in Camden and the debate on this point would seem to indicate that people are both interested and concerned. The meeting was able to hear something about the intentions and the methods that will be used and seemed somewhat reassured. Since this is thread that is going to run through the next year, there is no doubt that it will come back to this group each time that it meets. The main item for the evening’s discussion was Primary Care and the relation of General Practitioners to patients with mental-health difficulties. There was a mixed view and the general opinion that some GPs are not only not interested in people who present with these conditions but actively discourage them and regard them as a ‘problem’. The next Mental Health Liaison Group will be on Thursday, 8th April 2004. If anyone wishes to know more or to have some input then they should contact Jill Clarkson on 020 7974 1459 or by e-mail: jill.clarkson@camden.gov.uk Angela Hall, Service User Involvement Co-ordinator reports on the meeting of the Care Trust’s Service User Advisory Group. Angela may be contacted by mail at 60 Bath Street, London, EC1V 9DP, by telephone on 0207 530 2744 or by e-mail: angela.hall@candi.nhs.uk The 19th December will be the last meeting of the UAG. The meeting will take place in the Training Department at St Luke’s Hospital, from 1pm onwards. A Christmas buffet will be provided. The meeting will essentially be a celebration and reflection of all the work that has been done by the UAG over the last few years. Last month’s UAG meeting was well attended and a range of issues were discussed minutes of the meeting are available on request. As previously referred to in The Bugle, the new Consultation Forum and Implementation Groups will be starting in the New Year. The Consultation Forum will be an open forum and will meet every other month on Friday’s. Dates, times and venues below:
The first half of the Consultation Forum meetings will be ‘themed’ and service users who attend them will instruct the Care Trust as to what the ‘themes’ should be. These can only be put in place when the Forum has begun and will be discussed at the first meeting in January. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a restful Christmas and look forward to the New Year and all the forthcoming challenges that it may bring!
Robert Jones, the Social Care & Inclusion Development Manager, provides a review of the month’s events within Camden & Islington Mental Health & Social Care Trust. Robert can be contacted at Care Trust Headquarters, 2nd floor, East Wing, St Pancras Hospital, London NW1 OPE, by telephone on 020 7445 8554 or by e-mail robert.jones@candi.nhs.uk Exhibition of Art, Photography and Poetry There is an exhibition of art, photography and poetry to mark the ending of the Waterlow Psychiatric Unit. The exhibition will run until the end of January 2004. Viewing times are 10 – 12 noon and 2 – 4 pm, Monday to Friday in the Common Room, Waterlow Unit, Highgate Hill, N19. All are welcome to come and view, but if you want to organise a group viewing please telephone the reception in advance on 020 7530 2283. Free Conference for Black Service Users Real & Relevant is a conference organised between Rethink and Mellow with input on the day from Camden & Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust. It will be held at Stratford Town Hall on Wednesday, 21st January 2004, between 9.30 – 4.00 pm. The conference aims to be a solution focused event exploring real solutions to supporting young Black and African/African Caribbean men with mental health problems. For more details, contact Robert Jones on 0207 445 8554. A Thank You from the Care Trust The last year has seen an increase in service user participation in Care Trust Business. There have been a number of significant developments like the Service User Involvement Strategy, participation on Care Trust Committees etc. Service users have made a huge contribution to the work of the Care Trust, in so many ways. The Care Trust would like to extend it’s sincere thanks to you all for your input, and wish you all a very good Christmas, and look forward to working with you in the coming New Year. Camden Mental Health & Social Care Trust Board Meeting The December meeting of the Care Trust Board will be held on Thursday, 18th December from 5.00 pm in The Conference Centre West Wing, St Pancras Hospital. Papers are available from the Board Secretary, Kate Wilkins, on 020 7445 8427 or by e-mail: kate.wilkins@candi.nhs.uk
Aidan Moloney is the Co-ordinator of Camden & Islington Providers’ Forum (CIPF). In future we will be including regular monthly contributions from Aidan telling people what is happening in the voluntary sector. Aidan can be contacted by post at Camden & Islington Providers’ Forum, Legard Works, Legard Road, London, N5 1DE; by ‘phone on 020 7226 2022, and by e-mail cipf.office@virgin.net CIPF recently held its Annual General Meeting, giving us the opportunity to reflect over the twelve months and set our agenda for the coming year. This year we were pleased to welcome four additional organisations to our membership. We continue to seek new members that represent as fully as possible the provision of services locally. Through the Forum, the voluntary sector continues to have a voice on local networks review groups and commissioning bodies. This year, facilitated by CIPF, we will have voluntary sector representatives on both Camden and Islington LIT's; at the C&I MH&SC Trust Executive Forum; on Best Value Working and Reference Groups across both Camden & Islington and on project groups on Services for Older People with Mental Health Needs, Early Intervention Services and Accommodation and Support. In my capacity as CIPF Co-ordinator, I aim to keep in touch with the wider voluntary sector networks in the field of health, primary care and regeneration. Through such networks CIPF and its members continue to facilitate key links between the statutory and independent sectors not only in providing a valuable source of information sharing and co-operation but also in influencing the delivery and commissioning of mental health services across Camden and Islington. We are keen, in particular, to work more closely with service users in the year ahead, welcoming them to attend our meetings if there are particular issues they wish discussed. I would like to remind all readers that they can contact me any matter they would like to bring to the attention of our membership. I will, of course, continue to contribute to service users’ communications. We will be prepared to support too, initiatives by user- led organisations, in order to influence services to be more accessible to them and more in tune with their needs. Finally, I would like to wish all Bugle readers a very happy holiday season and best wishes for the New Year.
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