"Exceptional Community Psychiatric Nurse"

We want to leave positive feedback for Caroline, Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN).

My mum has been under services for mental health since her bipolar diagnosis in 2008. 

In these years my mum has been very unstable and often needed extra support from the crisis team along side regular appointments with her psychiatrist and the frequent changes in her medication. Over this time my mum has had many attempts at suicide, continual use of self harm and her quality of life had been very poor due to the consistent decline in her mental state.

In 2019 Caroline became my mums nurse, and the relationship between my mum, Caroline and myself started. It was very clear that Caroline's intentions were to get a very clear understanding of who my mum is and instantly made her feel comfortable as the care she was receiving felt personal rather than her being just another patient.

Since this point Caroline has continued to build an understanding of who she is and at present knows my mum extremely well. My mum has never been able to build trust and reliability in any mental health professional before this point but now has complete confidence in Caroline.

She will confide in Caroline without hesitation where as up to this point would only talk to family. She completely trusts Caroline's opinions and advice and this is all down to the relationship Caroline carefully built with my mum on her terms.

Since Caroline became my mums CPN having regular home visits. her mental state has been at its most stable since diagnosis and she has had no suicide attempts. She no longer deliberately self harms. Crisis team have had no intervention and her quality of life has improved dramatically in despite of hardship and difficult times in her life. Caroline is able to understand her beyond appearance and façade.

Caroline's quick interventions always means a plan is put in place as soon as my mum is feeling low or elated and medication is reviewed which prevents decrease in her mental state. Both my mum and family believe all of this is due to the amazing relationship and trust Caroline managed to build.

Without doubt the treatment, care and respect Caroline shows not only to my mum but also our family is above and beyond any expectation. She is exceptional at her job and is genuinely changing people's life.

I can say as a daughter for the first time in over 14 years we as a family can finally see my mum back, as a mother, as a wife, as a friend.

Caroline has helped her regain her identity rather than her just being mentally unwell.