Carers Week took place in early June 2022 as most of you will know. My pledge on the National Carers Week site was to write a blog about the Rampton Hospital Carers Event held on Saturday 11th June. Because of Covid restrictions, the last two years of carer meetings have been via a video link. Hopefully the planned September meeting will be face to face. To be fair, the meetings over the last two years have gone really well and have been well supported by carers and staff alike
What I like about the carers events is the time staff give time to family members who attend, encouraging them to ask questions at any time which as usual they did! This makes it a real two way conversation possible, always open and transparent and linking to our Trust values.
Lorna Breckell the Family and Volunteer support manager welcomed everyone. As always, Lorna was excellent and kept the meeting on time. She handed over to Kerry Burton who is in a new post at Rampton Hospital as Head of Business and Operations. Kerry has always been very supportive towards Involvement over the years and in her last role as Matron for Personality Disorder Services, she was a real star! Kerry gave an update on the last CQC (Care Quality Commission) Inspection rating back in 2019. Kerry said she believed there had been a lot of improvements including involving patients to improve services. Kerry said the CQC visit assessment was due and they could visit and inspect Rampton at anytime. Kerry gave an overview of recruitment and the high staff vacancies and explained that this is a National issue and not just in our Trust. Kerry said that the hospital was trying to look at the skill mix of staff to help the current situation.
Lorna handed over to the Kay Carley, Therapies and Education Manager for an update with help from James Routen Head of Sports & Leisure at the hospital.
Kay Carly updated the group with information that all the units have commenced new integrated multidisciplinary structure programmes as outlined in the Therapy Education Service Review. The new Occupational Therapy Speech and Language Education Assessment, Treatment and Discharge pathway commenced as part of this programme. This includes vocational, health and fitness and healthy lifestyles. In other Health and fitness news, Kay highlighted that ward observation training, Level II fitness training and lifeguard training had taken place. Kay gave an update on vocational developments and chat. Chaplaincy events including staffing the EID celebrations which had been very well supported by staff and was excellent.
Kay said that the new Phoenix Day Centre at Rampton was almost ready to open. It is hoped the therapies education staff could give a tour for interested carers at the next carers social visitors event in September 2022. She explained that there had also been some funding for the library Learning Disability Services.
Kay and James gave an update on the Rampton Recovery College
There was an update on Deaf Awareness Week
Jubilee Celebrations
Feedback from Women’s Services
On the 1st of June 2022, the nation celebrated her Majesty, the Queens Platinum Jubilee Event to commemorate seventy years as monarch to our great country. Celebrations in honour of this took place across the four nations.
The update below was not presented at the carers event but is included to highlight one of the Jubilee Celebration events
Rampton Hospital and its Therapies and Education Service were no exception, the Diamond Resource Centre Day Unit (DRC) based within the National Women’s Service Care stream, recognised the importance of the day and the opportunity it presented to plan a special event for the patients. It was agreed that patient inclusion was paramount to the development of the day therefore, the Diamond Resource Centre team made extended efforts to attend patient areas to discuss the topic. The aim was to empower the patients in making choices about what they wanted at the event.
We received a great response. Patients showed a keen interest helping to plan the celebrations. We incorporated the preparatory work into the weekly timetabled sessions in the DRC. A nurse led, therapy workshop, and high support activity room sessions. We factored in the directorates segregated patient population of whom our service engages with on a day-to-day basis. All helped with décor for the event, both inside and outside of the building.
Entertainment and activities were offered throughout the day. All staff within the Resource Centre ensured that they were available on duty to support the event. Both the National Service Operational Manager, Helen Watkinson and the Therapies and Education Service Manager, Kay Carley attended the day, feeding back their appreciation of the event and highlighting the efforts of all those involved in the organisation and running of the day. Thankfully the weather remained dry allowing the event to mainly take place outside in the fresh air.
Refreshments were eagerly accepted by everyone in light of the warm weather. We utilised the professional DJ skills of one of the members of our team to provide music and karaoke. An invitation was accepted by the Rosewood Involvement Centre who have provided excellent service in supporting the Therapies and Education Service in recent years. The event was attended by three of their representatives, two of whom form a band “The Rosewood Rockers”. They performed live music for the patients present, who in turn showed their appreciation by singing, dancing, and clapping along to the songs played. Kev (the Rev) Shaw, a well respected Reverend based within the Chaplaincy Department gave an opportunity for a patient to showcase their vocal talents whilst playing guitar. We also received a very special performance from a team member, Speech and Language Therapist, Jack Schofield, who has an extensive musical background. He provided two excellent acoustic versions of popular songs. This has created a great deal of enthusiasm within the Care stream for patients expressing a desire to attend the Diamond Resource Centre’s music group to learn how to play an instrument.
Our Health and Fitness lead, Nicole Fraser made excellent use of the AstroTurf court leading patients in sporting activities. Stalls were positioned in and around the Day Unit area, and other professional agencies, the Hospital Chaplaincy and Beauty Salon, provided activities themed around the Queen, an example of which “Pin the tail on the Corgi”, was very popular amongst the patient group!
A tombola and book stalls were provided. All proceeds raised from sales are to be donated to a charitable cause. Patients within the care stream were involved in agreeing where the money raised should go. It was decided that all proceeds would go to Thornbury Animal Sanctuary. This decision was unanimous within the patient group as a tribute to a former peer who sadly passed away and had a huge affection for animals.
The hospital Horticulture team were present at the event. The Diamond Resource Centre has excellent working relations with the department and is very well attended by patients across the Care Stream. Two staff represented the department, creating an animal pen in the Women’s Service Compound area. They brought animals over, including ducks and guinea pigs. Patients were able to sit with animals and feed them.
The Diamond Resource Centre, Lead Education Lecturer, Richard Neal presented achievement awards in recognition for the efforts of the patients attending Education classes. Both he and the area Learning Support Worker, Karina Walton presented certificates and an Education Champion award with a specially designed Shield Trophy. None of the Education attendees were aware they would be receiving these accolades, and all expressed their jubilation in having done so. It should be mentioned that this reflected the hard work and success in engaging patients, some of whom were very resistant, in learning and gaining national qualifications.
To conclude the event, two members of the patient group read a specially written speech in tribute to HRH the Queen. The patients gathered to either assist or observe the planting of two Magnolia trees donated to our department by Graham Brader, Head of MITTE, to commemorate the Jubilee Day. It was a fitting end to a fantastic day and one that the Diamond Resource Centre Team, the various supporting departments, and the Care stream patients should be proud of achieving amazing success.
Finally from Kay and James, an update around the Koestler awards 2022 from the Personality Disorder Service and an update on new Horticulture Animals
To end we had a presentation from Robert Naylor, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead for Forensic services.
I always enjoy attending when Robert is presenting. He’s so passionate about his work and role. He’s already made a huge difference since he started working for us just over a year ago
Well as you can see it was a full agenda and excellent to end the session Lorna had an open door chat along .
Well done all round
Nigel
Involvement and Experience Lead Forensic Services