"Psychiatric Liaision Team A&E Department Royal..."

I have been seen by the Psychiatric Liaision Team at the Royal London on several occasions over the past 2-3 years. I have a complex psychiatric history and so although I arrived there in some distress, the reality was I wasn't in urgent need of treatment in that my crises could have been dealt with at home had I ridden the crest of the storm myself for a little while longer. However, without meaning to sound flippant, it is what it is, and more importantly I received professional support on the majority of times I attended this service. This brings me on to describing in as much detail as I can about the quality of care I received primarily from the nurses on this crisis team. The nurses that I saw, with the exception of one, were adept and thorough in their assessment procedures. I felt at ease and understood in the long time it took to evaluate my needs. The nurses were competent; made many useful and informative suggestions in a diligent and co-operative manner and I felt assured and confident that my needs were being met and most importantly, understood. The atmosphere was calm and the nurses (one specialist each time) were sincere and accomplished at delivering what were comprehensive and compassionate examinations of where I was at mentally and physically. Their conscientious and diligent approach made me feel at ease and I felt very confident that measures they deployed would put into action a plan to help me recover from the distress I was then experiencing. Their attentiveness- (sound listening skills) were authentic and imaginative. They clearly had vast experience in their field and I felt very fortunate indeed to be receiving their excellent care and attention. Following these 'emergency' consultations my spirits were lifted considerably and upon returning home I once more felt I had some of the tools to recover from my then situations successfully. They didn't (nurses) have a clinical manner, but, a calm and measured responsiveness. It is my firm belief that it takes a particularly gifted person to become a nurse. Their gifts make them unique, hard-working and very self-sacrificing in terms of the commitment and in my instance, very high standard of care shown to me in what must be very challenging roles that makes them entirely sympathetic to others. They make sensitive and difficult, sometimes precarious, decisions. I was once told by my very first psychiatrist treating me at the Royal London from December 2009-March 2013 that should I ever be in an emergency situation nurses both in the PLT and at affiliated Mile End Hospital (where I have been an inpatient in the past), would deliver a very high standard of performance of care in their chosen areas of expertise. They were very right and assured about this. I haven't added some information yet about my own psychiatric disorders. I do think including these may be useful to others. My dual disorders are Bipolar and BPD. ...Contd.