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Care Opinion

A distressing experience

Story from nhs.uk

"A distressing experience"

About: Hammersmith & Fulham Mental Health Unit

There are a number of committed, talented and generous-hearted staff on this unit and I would not wish to denigrate their work. I have already thanked them individually for this.

I was housed here for around six months and found some treatment very poor, to the extent that, in some instances, I feel that my condition worsened rather than improved.

I made the MIND advocate aware of these issues and they are a matter of record, but I chose not to proceed with any complaint procedures as I needed to concentrate on my own recovery.

The atmosphere of this unit is generally rather depressing and, at worst, feels more like a prison than a hospital. An example of this is that a large courtyard beside the cafeteria was kept closed throughout my stay, despite the known benefits of outdoor areas for the well-being of patients. When I queried this I was given inconsistent answers; security, weather, heath and safety, staff shortages. I hope this situation has changed.

There seemed to me to be something of a barrier between patients and staff. While some staff showed respect to those in their care, others adopted a parental, patronising and sometimes offensive attitude.

I sincerely wish I was able to submit a more favourable review as I wish only the best to anyone who stays in this unit, but I'm frankly amazed at the published 100% satisfaction rate and I cannot support it.

If anyone would like to discuss this further I am contactable.

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Responses

Response from Simba Kaseke, Inpatient Service Manager, West London NHS Trust 6 years ago
Simba Kaseke
Inpatient Service Manager,
West London NHS Trust

Submitted on 15/02/2018 at 13:33
Published on Care Opinion at 13:48

I am really sorry to hear about your experience and some of the staff’s attitude that you have described falls short of what we expect from all of our staff. The unit provides care for patient who are experiencing different conditions of mental illness and also different levels of risk to themselves or to others. Sometimes it can be difficult to strike the right balance between keeping all the patients safe and at the same time reducing restrictive practices. One such example is related to one of the issues that you have raised regarding the courtyard in the canteen area. This courtyard used to be open at all times and the patients could easily access it but however due to a number of serious incidents we were left with no option but to open it only during meal times when staff are able to supervise it. We simply do not have enough staff to supervise the courtyard at all times. There are individual courtyards on all of the wards which can be accessed by the patients more frequently.

I have taken on board some of the suggestions that you have made regarding the overall therapeutic milieu of the unit. I would very much welcome an opportunity to meet up with you along with any other service users who might be interested in order to get ideas on how we can best decorate the wards to make them much warmer.

Kind regards

Simba

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