The changing face of care

Many patient stories have moved me throughout the years, but there was one in particular which had a deeper impact on me. I felt I needed to write a poem about them as a way to deal with the impact of their emotional distress. In my 20 years working in mental health, I’ve had an amazing and inspirational view into the emotional complexity and stages of an individual’s journey - from experiencing a chaotic daily existence to achieving a feeling of being whole again with an outlook of better health, hope and happiness! Andreas Schoyen

Learning sign language and adapting to the deaf culture in our deaf services can be comical. Sometimes, after what I think is a beautiful flow of my hands conveying accurate sign language, I can see the facial expression of the deaf person clearly saying, “What?”

Claudette Lewis

What I Iike about mental health nursing is that it is hopeful, and you can see people get well and move on. In general nursing, you see only part of a patient’s journey. Although there are tragic stories, most people achieve some form of recovery and are able to put their lives back together.

Richard Dalton

I find it incredibly gratifying that so many service users have not only gone on to full employment, but have become mental health professionals, both here and at other trusts. Many say it’s in appreciation for the support they received.

Ian Jordan

Once, in the middle of a supermarket, a service user from Jupiter Ward stopped me and said in front of everybody, that: She don’t care if I am white. She don’t care if I am black. She don’t care if I am mixed-race, tall or anything, she treats everybody the same. For me, this was the biggest compliment.

Ioanna

In the big old dormitories, there was very little privacy for patients, and the smell of cigarette smoke was everywhere. At night, the snoring and the smells made sleeping difficult. It was so refreshing when we moved to the then new buildings.

Sharon Spain

We used to get to know the long-stay patients, often having a chat with them. They became institutionalised back then. Our service has really changed for people with the focus on recovery.

Trevor Weeden

Patients used to be institutionalised. A mix of geriatric and mental health. A lot of people were sectioned for very trivial reasons, sometimes for autism which was not a recognised disability at the time.

Martin Nolan

Mental health care has changed so much for the better. Back then, medication was often heavily used with our patients. But I did enjoy the old smoking rooms where patients would sit chatting and you got so much information!

Sharon Spain

I became “Auntie Maureen” for one of the service users who had an Auntie Maureen in his family. I would say: “I don’t like it when you swear”, and he would say “Oh, I’m sorry, Auntie Maureen”, and would stop swearing. It always amazed me to have such a gentle impact on this person who was struggling.

Maureen Booth

Back in 1990, I would work one day a week on the rehabilitation ward which supported up to 30 women. Both shocking and sad, these patients had been there much of their adult lives. Many had been sectioned in the 1930s, 40s and 50s mainly because they had children ‘out of wedlock’. They were very charming but their lives had stood still. One of my duties was to update their drug charts so that they could all have a glass of sherry at 6pm.

Anna Graham

I remember that tragically a member of staff died following an incident on a ward. That had a huge impact on the whole Trust. The small ray of light was how we came together afterwards. Now there is a far better understanding of the challenges that our teams face every day at work.

Anonymous

I once looked after a young man in rehab services who was severely impacted by his illness and his upbringing. His whole view of the world was through a lens of being unwell, having grown up with a family who were also unwell. I saw him a few years ago, and he explained he was now living semi-independently, and even managed to mend some of his family relationships. It was so gratifying to see what he had achieved.

Richard Dalton

I remember the Morris Markowe Unit, where the day room was so large it could seat all 160 people simultaneously. The average length of stay was 25 years. The hospital was the only ‘home’ that they had known. Privacy, dignity, respect, individuality were in short supply. We always tried to resettle people in community-supported accommodation with their friends, but as this was the only ‘home’ that many had known, some were reluctant to leave. We reassured them that they could come back if they did not like their new homes, but no-one did. It was such a joy to see people enjoying their new, more dignified homes: having their own clothes, being able to choose whether they wanted sugar in their tea, the new freedom they enjoyed, even having the odd drink in the evening! One group of 16 people were resettled in supported flats in a beautiful mansion block in Chelsea that overlooked the river Thames. We evaluated this move and wrote a paper entitled ‘From Long-Stay Patient to Sloane Ranger’! Rachel Perkins

I came to love working with older people. I loved listening to their life stories – their experience, their resilience, having seen and participated in our history and lived in a different world than we know now. I met a woman who had flown military aircraft in the Second World War. I had never heard that before - while women had not flown in combat, they would fly planes from base to base. Dr Claire Pond

I was in my early twenties when I helped set up a hospital radio station. There were up to 15 volunteers involved in Radio 9, named after the nine hospitals it covered, and it was very professional. Graham Taplin and I used to put on the late show on Friday evenings. We borrowed the name of Capital Radio DJ Nicky Horne’s show Your Mother Wouldn’t Like it and called ours The Matron Wouldn’t Like It, with pop and rock music. During the day the music was lighter. We used to go around the wards to get requests from the patients. Sometimes they would leave a card for us to play a song for their son or daughter or spouse, and we’d play the song with their messages. Peter Smith