Monthly Newsletter of Camden Mental Health Consortium |
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ISSUE 87 |
November 2004 |
For many users of the mental health services the idea of choice is a new one. They have had little opportunity in the past to have input into where they are treated, who they are treated by and how they are treated. Many recent developments have improved the position, but few think that they can make the choices that they would like to. Some choices are obvious. Everyone would like to be warm, comfortable and well fed. Others are more complicated and rely on having some knowledge and this can only be obtained when there is access to the necessary information. This is the idea of ‘informed choice’. The Government talks about offering people who use the NHS (almost all of us) ‘choice’, but it is not clear what that means for the mental health services. Will it mean that you have a choice on where your treated and who you are treated by? In that case, almost all Camden & Islington patients are likely to want to be treated in the better conditions of the Highgate Mental Health Unit. Will it mean that patients can access ‘talking treatments’ as they have always said that they wanted to? Will it mean that they do not have to take medications which have unpleasant side effects or cause them to lose their libido? The answers to all these questions are ‘probably not’. How will it affect patients who are formally detained? The answer is ‘almost certainly not at all’. So where is the CHOICE? Possibly one of the developments which will provide choice for people in a new way is the introduction of Direct Payments. This will only apply in the area of Social Care (if it applied in the area of clinical care it would cause chaos) but will allow individuals to have more freedom in things like Day Care. If they want to undertake some particular project and their care package has money enough then they should be able to do so. It’s a small start but it is an important one. Choice and Freedom go together and they have been absent from the mental health world for too long.
THANKS CMHC would like to thank the Swan Mountain Trust for its generous donation of £500 towards the provision of computer equipment for our work. The Swan Mountain Trust is another of those charities which has previously made donations to support the work of CMHC.
DRAFT MENTAL HEALTH BILL CMHC is collaborating with CIPF and the London Development Centre for Mental Health to provide an afternoon briefing on the Draft Mental Health Bill which is currently being examined by a Joint Committee from both Houses of Parliament. The briefing will take place from 1.30 pm on Wednesday, 1st December in The Council Chamber at Hampstead Town Hall and will be chaired by the Mayor of Camden, Councillor Harriet Garland.
PATIENTS’ FORUM The second public meeting of the Camden & Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust’s Patients’ Forum will be held at the London Voluntary Resource Centre, Holloway Road from 7.00 pm on Tuesday, 7th December. This meeting will provide an opportunity to meet Forum Members and hear about the work that they have been engaged in during the first year of the Forum’s life.
CAMDEN COUNCIL’s MENTAL HEALTH LIAISON GROUP The Mental Health Liaison Group will meet at from 6.00 – 8.00 pm on Thursday, 9th December at Jules Thorn Day Unit, St Pancras Hospital when the main topic on the agenda will be ‘COMPLAINTS’.
CMHC SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING & CHRISTMAS PARTY CMHC will be holding its Christmas Party at the St Pancras Conference Centre from 6.00 pm on Friday, 10th December. Notices have already been sent out advising Members that this will be a Special General Meeting to approve the incorporation of CMHC to become a Company Limited by Guarantee. This has already been agreed at the 2003 and 2003 Annual General Meetings but now requires a formal resolution at a General Meeting. After the formalities of the meeting, there will be a presentation on some of the work that is being carried out in Camden and this will be followed by the traditional Christmas Party fare.
CARE TRUST BOARD MEETING The final Care Trust Board Meeting for this year will be held in The St Pancras Conference Centre from 5.00 pm on Thursday, 16th December. Paper are available from the Board’s Secretary, Kate Wilkins on 020 7485 8427or e-mail kate.wilkins@candi.nhs.uk Notified questions for the Board should be sent to Kate by 5.00 pm on Tuesday, 14th December.
SMUG The fledgling Substance Misuse User Group which is a 6th-month Drug Action Team funded project is doing well under the care of Richard and Shirley. In consultation with service users is has agreed to use the name ‘SMUG’. It has its own phone lines: 020 7419 4195 and 0 (mobile) and its own stationary with the SMUG logo. Ricahrd and Shirley have already done a lot of work in meeting service users and professionals and they will be holding the first service-user meeting of SMUG from 11.30 on Wednesday, 15th December at Hampstead Town Hall.
SOUTH CAMDEN USER FORUM (SCUF) The SCUF on Tuesday, 30th November, from 5.00 – 6.30 pm in The Conference Centre at St Pancras Hospital will bring Dr Diana Rose, Co-ordinator of the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at The Institute of Psychiatry to talk about her research work on ‘Users’ Experience of ECT’. This is the last meeting of SCUF for 2004
NORTH CAMDEN USER FORUM The final North Camden User Forum for 2004 will be held from 5.00 – 6.30 pm on Tuesday, 7th December in Room 20 in The Psychotherapy Corridor at The Royal Free Hospital (near Psychiatry Out-Patients). The topic is the one that has become traditional for this meeting – ‘Surviving Christmas’. NCUF will continue in 2005 with the first meeting on Tuesday, 4th January, which will look again at The Royal Free Hospital Nurses’ Tower Development.
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
SERVICE USER INVOLVEMENT WITHIN THE CARE TRUST Would you like to become actively involved in helping the Care Trust to improve services? If so, Ros Lettman the service user involvement co-ordinator would like to hear from you. Ros has been building up a service user involvement bank, people who have used mental health services and who are now available to attend and influence committee’s, become involved in interviewing and training staff or monitoring the services that are provided. For details of how you can get involved ring Ros on 020-7530-3340
WARD WATCH In September, the mental health charity MIND launched the Ward Watch research findings, which documented the experiences of current and recent mental health patients in England and Wales. The report revealed two extremes in hospital conditions: For some patients, the hospital environment helps recovery. For others, poor accommodation and security, safety concerns, insufficient staffing levels and intense boredom have exacerbated existing difficulties and created new ones, subjecting patients to an environment that was inhuman rather than therapeutic. Some of the key findings of the research: · 23% of respondents were accommodated on mixed sex wards · 27% of respondents said they rarely felt safe whilst in hospital · 44% felt safe all or most of the time. · 51% of recent or current inpatients reported being verbally or physically threatened during their stay · 20% reported physical assault · 53% of respondents felt that hospital environment had not helped their recovery · 31% felt that hospital had made things worse · 20% of respondents felt that they were treated with dignity and respect by staff. · 17% stated they were never treated with any dignity of respect by staff. The Care Trust is looking at the study along with the recent patient survey to identify issues locally. For more information on this work contact Ros Lettman on 020-7530-3340
NEWS OF FORTHCOMING EVENTS “Mad Chicks”, the ‘girly’ section of mad pride, who are a group of women psychiatric patients and survivors of the psychiatric system. They believe that a women-focussed organisation and campaign can highlight issues with particular female resonance, such as mixed wards, childcare, assertiveness and rights and sexism in the NHS. “Mad Chicks” are having their launch event on the 27th November at the Union Chapel building in Islington. The event is in two parts, the first event starts at 1pm and is for women and ‘girls’ only, entry is free. The evening event starts at 7pm and is open for all genders, entry is £5. For details contact 07939-521659 Drayton Park Women’s centre is holding its 9th anniversary event on the 10th December from 12 to 5pm with poetry, presentations and a range of complimentary therapies. For details contact Martha at Drayton Park on 020-7607 2777. Islington Older People’s Network presents a multi-cultural dance festival on the 24th November from 2 – 4pm at St Luke’s Music Education Centre, London, EC1V. To reserve a place contact Healthy Islington on 020-7527-3048 Camden Council is hosting a Sign language users meeting on the 26th November 2004 starting at 6pm in Camden’s Council Chamber. The event is free. For details contact Stuart Rayner by minicom on 0207 974 6716 or by sms on 07 812 809 108. The 5th, Mental Health 2005 Annual conference will be on the 19th & 20th May 2005 at Church House in Westminster, London. Speakers will be looking at clinical risk management in mental health together with user involvement, empowerment & information. There are a number of free places available for service users. For more details contact: Healthcare Events on 020-8541-1399
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