May is an interesting month if you like bank holidays. We have two of this month. May 4th (not Star Wars) and 25th May both of which are Mondays of course.
We kick off the month’s activities in deaf awareness week which is 5th May to 8th May at Rosewood. We do have an event on 7th May from 1pm raising awareness and celebrating deaf awareness week. A new trust leaflet for support will be launched that day. We will have interpreters on hand.
Third sector partnership working also makes developments this month working with Bassetlaw mind. Thinking how we communicate and gain feedback in a two-way process. The work includes working with Bassetlaw CCG.
On Wednesday 6th May we will be attending Millbrook hospital. There have been some great initiatives lately to improve patient care. The meeting we will be attending this day is called the ‘change team’. This group of individuals are a mix of staff and service users working in partnership to actively review and improve the day-to-day care of patients. It is wonderful to see such developments and be part of that process. On 13th May a different meeting called Millbrook live will be taking place this slightly different from the change team meeting as it looks at plans for special events at the hospital which patients can take part in. A good example of this is the summer fair party on 9th July. To continue the theme finally there is a patient council meeting at Millbrook. This is a great opportunity for patients to air their views, promote good practice and voice any concerns they may have. With staff at all levels attending this is a great opportunity for patients to interact with staff AND LEAVE FEEDBACK.
The Rosewood Centre and its volunteers, service users and carers will be actively involved in interviewing staff. We have two sets of interviews at Wathwood hospital, a medium secure forensic setting. The two interviews are both for nurses. One of our volunteers has already been to Wathwood to assist patients to produce value and recovery based questions that they would like to ask. One of our volunteers will then attend the interviews to support the patients. How about that for involvement, service users helping patients? The next set of interviews we are doing will be a service user carer panel assisting a professional panel. This post is for a consultant at the high secure hospital Rampton.
The two involvement centres will come together on 18 May to do the involvement interview team training- this is packs one and two. This training reviews the history of the involvement interview team, works on job descriptions for staff nurses, produces value and recovery based questions, ending with a mock interview. This is a great opportunity for new volunteers to get a better understanding of interviewing across the trust building skills which build confidence to take part in this involvement opportunity.
Our communication, feedback, media group continues to meet at the centre each Monday from 10am until 3pm. Of course with the two bank holidays there will only be two groups in May- the 11th and 18th. The group is keen to continue to learn about how to use social media.
Nigel, the centre manager will be visiting her Majesty’s prison Lindholme this month. This will be to deliver a recovery presentation around his lived experience of mental health. The group at the prison attending this will be those who are experiencing mental health illness.
On 20th May at Trust headquarters there is an opportunity for service user’s volunteers and members to be involved in business planning for local services. This is where the senior management from local services present around their business plans. Service users and carers are then asked to comment on and challenge the plans. This is great involvement at a more strategic level.
The weekly centre meeting at Rosewood this month is an exciting time to hear presentations from trust staff. The meeting starts at 1pm every Friday and ends at 3pm. Our guests include this month a senior human resource manager who will come to talk to around measures for interviewing and how this can be improved. The head of involvement will be attending on 8th May, again a great opportunity for our volunteers to hear from him.
The Trust’s membership office will be attending on 15th May. This will be to give a talk around membership and an opportunity for members to join the trust. Also on the 15th we have trust staff from the learning and development department- they will talk about possible opportunities for learning and development of service users and carers. The meeting will end with an open discussion with the manager of volunteering and befriending and a look at plans for volunteers week. On 22nd May the centre meeting will focus on personal development plans for volunteers. It will also have a member of staff from the care programme approach office with an opportunity to become involved in a new project for the year ahead. More to follow on this.
Finally on 29th May at the centre meeting we have the acting ward manager from the Lucy Wade unit at Millbrook hospital- this is an acute inpatient ward. Jo Fox is the manager. We have worked with her during the past and will be reviewing what progress we have made at all the Millbrook meetings. She will also update who she has been working with from the involvement volunteer team here at Rosewood and now they have helped develop and change services. Our final guest on 29th May is Amanda Kemp; Amanda is the deputy director of local services. This will be an opportunity for Amanda to update us on her work and to be challenged by our service users and carers. Amanda always brings new themes in which she is interested in involving our volunteers.
For more information about the Rosewood involvement centre please contact Nigel Groves, the involvement centre manager.
Tel 0115 9560845