During your stay your relative/ friend will be assigned a clinical team to assist them in meeting their care needs.
There is a regular meeting called a Multi-Disciplinary Meeting (MDM). The people who attend this meeting may include Nursing and Medical staff, Occupational Therapists, Social Workers and Psychologists where appropriate. You can request to meet with any team member or the entire team at the MDM to discuss your friend/relative's care with their consent.
The Social Worker from the ward may ask if it is ok for them to complete a visit to your home, with the consent of the service user. This is so we can establish any relevant background information and your views and your perspective.
All staff are unable to accept gifts or gratuities.
The Care Programme Approach (CPA) is a way that services are assessed, planned, co-ordinated and reviewed for someone with mental health problems or a range of related complex needs.
A CPA meeting will take place 3 months after admission and then six monthly. Family Friends and Carers can be invited if the service user agrees.
We take your safety very seriously. We have adult Safeguarding procedures in place so that we can reduce the potential for any form of abuse, and prevent abuse from occurring.
Preventing abuse should occur in the context of person-centred support and personalisation, empowering individuals to make choices and supporting them to manage risks. If you make a disclosure of abuse, you will be listened to and the correct protocols followed.
Patients have the right to choose how much information is shared with their carer, family member or significant person in their life. For example, you might decide they can come to your Care Programme Approach review meetings, or to just be part of these meetings.
Allied Health Professions (AHPs) are a diverse group of practitioners who deliver high quality care to patients by carrying out assessment, diagnosis, treatment and discharge, across a range of settings in the NHS, local authorities, independent and voluntary sectors, breaking down organisational boundaries.
Their aim is to further improve services provided by AHPs to achieve better outcomes for patients after illness and injury.
They are well-placed to innovate and develop new models of care and are key to our integration of health and social care.
AHPs are the third largest group of practitioners who, in the main, are first contact practitioners. In the NHS alone they account for 1 in 10 staff.
MPFT employs over 1,000 AHPs across its whole portfolio of services, making up around one-eighth of the workforce.
Information about the roles we offer appear below. Search NHS careers for more information.
Dietitians assess, diagnose and treat diet and nutrition problems at an individual and wider public health level. Uniquely, Dietitians use the most up to date public health and scientific research on food, health and disease, which they translate into practical guidance to enable people to make appropriate lifestyle and food choices.
Professional body:
"Occupational therapy provides practical support to empower people to facilitate recovery and overcome barriers preventing them from doing the activities (or occupations) that matter to them. This support increases people's independence and satisfaction in all aspects of life." - Royal College of Occupational Therapy, 2019
You will find Occupational Therapists in Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust working in a range of mental health, physical health and social services applying their specialist knowledge and expertise. This includes community and in patient settings.
The Royal College of Occupational Therapists
What is Occupational Therapy? - RCOT
Occupational therapy evidence factsheets - RCOT
These information leaflets will help you to find out more about Occupational Therapy and how it can help you reach your goals:
Occupational Therapy at Hatherton Centre (pdf)
Occupational Therapy at Clee (pdf)
A service user guide to occupational therapy in forensic settings - Youtube
If you have communication difficulties, we can help you build on your communication skills.
We can help your care team understand how to communicate with you.
We can support you to understand your care pathway and therapy program.
I came here from another establishment, another hospital. Things have been fine here, although when I first arrived and sometimes still, things aren't always straight in my head. It's times like that that it's hard to talk to people and to be polite and do as much as you want. But when my head did straighten out, then I just got on with things. You just have to be polite to people, get on. And I try to always keep busy, with constructive things, like the gym and activities and groups. Not just sitting around talking rubbish but using your time to do constructive things. It's nice to do things like go to the gym, you have a work out, come back, you have a shower, you feel good, your body feels good, it feels strained out'. It's something good to occupy your time, it's not a 'crutch' for me, but it's something good to do. I used to do a bit when I was younger and since I've been here I've taken it back up to lose a bit of weight. I eat healthy and stay healthy, and things have been stable now for a bit. It's a good place to be, as far as hospitals go.
It's hard being locked up, and not always knowing what the future holds, but I'm plodding on, best way that I can at the moment. So I'm being polite, getting on with people, finding my feet, but you have to do that everywhere don't you, that's life.
The staff are fine here, they expect you to obey the rules, but that's the way it is everywhere you have to go. It's always better when they treat you with respect, according to who you are age-wise, and they do that. They keep you up to date with stuff in MDM's/CPA's, and if you ask for something about your care to be done, it gets done. I was improving and asked the doctor about moving onto another ward, he set the wheels in motion and before I knew it everything was sorted out. Now I'm looking forwards towards that.
One day I woke up, and I started hearing voices, the voices lasted for quite a while. The worst was during the first month. I even contemplated suicide because you don't realise what's going on. I saw the Early Intervention people, but only saw the psychiatrist twice and was left to my own devices really, but because I didn't think it was mental illness, I thought it was police persecution or something like that, then I committed my offence. My psychologist later said that that was my cry for help, and that I never intended to hurt anyone. But it must have been a very scary time for the people in the shop at the time.
When I was put in prison I had my own house, I had a child, I had a good job I was due to start. Obviously when I did my index offence I was remanded in custody, and then put in a secure hospital. But I still wasn't taking my medication, I still didn't think it was mental health, and I got very paranoid and worse. Then on arrival at hospital I didn't want to come here at all, and I thought it was a stitch up by the police. And I had no understanding at all about mental illness or hospitals, especially secure hospitals.
I was offered medication when I first came but I still refused it, because I didn't think I was ill. When I started to act out because of my voices I was taken to Newport and still given the option of medication. In the end, I had to get injected to start me off on my medication, then I turned round and said I would take my medication orally. Because I didn't give the medication a chance to work, as in thinking positively that it might work it didn't seem like it had done anything to start off with. I spoke to a couple of the lads on Newport and they said their medication worked and it was Olanzapine, so I turned round and spoke to my doctor and said I wanted to be tried on Olanzapine and he said yes definitely. So I started taking that and miraculously within 14-21 days the voices and symptoms went. The paranoia sort of went, it was just that I had some fixed ideas about telepathic stuff and things like that. But what I needed to do to get a rational grip on the situation was get some peace and quiet from the voices so that I could think about, and make a decision about what had happened to me. Olanzapine gave me that chance and I remember the date...14th February 2011.
The biggest thing for me was to get more insight and more understanding into the illness that I was suffering from. I did that with the help of staff and other patients on the unit. A lot of stuff was printed off the internet for me, and of course the staff have got a lot of experience of psychosis and things like that. So I took all this and started teaching myself about it basically.
And talking to to other service users, as well as helping me think about Olanzapine, they also talked about drugs and staying off drugs. Because; if you do use drugs in the community, you'll definitely come back in hospital. But if you keep taking your medication and you stay off drugs and you've got a good routine out there, then you've got a good chance of staying out. And on the ward, the groups and routine definitely is something I'll take with me in the community.
I also managed to get on a few courses, a substance misuse course, and a mental awareness course. There was also talking therapies, with my key worker,
and with a psychologist, who did a year- long psychology assessment and report. They were all really beneficial and because I was back to normal in terms of no voices, I could actually participate as an integral member of the team, I was listened to.
The psychology report was really helpful, there are a lot of assessments such as the HCR-20 risk assessment which focus on the negatives, but this didn't.
The psychology report was a good report and was as accurate as I thought it could possibly get. I was really listened to, because it's a psychology report about me, the psychologist listens to you and then they go off and think about it and come up with a formulation.
It helped me understand the way I am and what made me be this way, and yeah, it was a really valuable tool for me.
And now 2 years down the line at the Hatherton Centre, I've moved form Ashley to Newport, then from Newport back to Ashley, then from Ashley to Radford, I was on Radford for 18 months, still continuing to learn and take part in all the groups I could possibly do. And because life is quite boring in hospital I started doing more groups in my free time, like the service user involvement group, the patient representative group, a group development meeting the recovery and outcomes meeting just to keep myself busy. That involvement was a big part but I think the biggest part that had to play was the psychology report, but the activities like going to the gym, playing computer games which every lad in here plays to death.
Things got better, doing my courses and things and eventually it came round to me having my escorted leave into town, in the grounds at fi And yeah, that's when it does start to feel more like hospital, and less like being locked up.
But you do need to gain insight into whatever happened to you before people start asking about needs because people can run off on the main problems and why they're there but the best thing to do is to get on. Since I've had my town leave, I've got a sustainable routine now, which is, football on a Monday, swimming on a Wednesday and town on a Friday and that's quite good. I've now moved onto Norton ward, and this is the last ward that there is on the Hatherton Centre.
I already know the plan for me when I leave, I'm going to 24-hour supported shared accommodation. But it's that I'm on the discharge ward at the Hatherton Centre which really gives me a positive feeling.
Now my unescorted leaves have been applied for and I should hear in the next week or two, and then I'll be able to go out into the community on my own. I've got to finish one more course, VOTP which stands for violent offender treatment programme, it's five weeks into that now but it's a very good course to go on, I think it's a 12 month course. I think when that's finished people start to think about discharge at the end of VOTP.
Not everyone's time will come for everything as soon as they want it to, but it's a process you've got to go through. To make sure you don't come back, you need to gain as much insight as possible and trust the team to get you back into the community.
I've got a couple of things planned for when I am discharged, you know the CQC, well they sent off for a service user expert post and I sent a CV and application form for that. That's a paid job, which is all good. If that doesn't work out then there is a place called RIOT, which is a drug and alcohol charity. I'll be able to work there on a voluntary basis but hopefully if they see that I've got a bit about me then thay might put me through an NVQ on substance misuse. That is my long-term goal to teach about substance misuse, but if I get the CQC thing then that might lead on to bigger things.