DiMH 2021 CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
somebody about how this has made you feel, knocking on an office door with a glass panel, where you are not only aware, but can actually see, that you’re being ignored.”
In touch with the outside world Kenita Watson said being able to keep her mobile phone was key; it made her feel she still had contact with the outside world, and removed the feeling of being ‘cut off, and disconnected from reality’. Her visits from family, however, always took place in the dining room, a central area of the ward, bringing an ‘array of issues and embarrassment’. She said: “There was no privacy whatsoever, and my visits were often hijacked by other patients with different diagnoses. My visitors were left feeling uncomfortable, and on occasions frightened; I felt like his reflected on their opinion of me. Had I been able to meet them in perhaps an on-site coffee shop or café, it would have gone some way to making them feel more comfortable to visit me; it might have helped them, and ultimately helped me too.”
On some occasions, but generally only for a short period following admission to a ward, she had her own en-suite bedroom, which ‘helped hugely’, but the bedroom was also the location of many of the meetings with her main nurse. While a private space – she thus understood the rationale for the meetings being held there – having ‘unloaded ‘her feelings and emotions, the nurse would then often leave the room, ‘reinforcing the feeling that the staff could just walk away’, and leaving her with the instability and lingering emotions the conversation had stirred up.
Feeling of boredom
Continuing her vivid portrayal of life on the inpatient ward, she told the audience: “The boredom I cannot put into words. The ward was not designed initially with long-stay patients in mind, so the activity room happened almost by accident – with the ‘distractions’ consisting mainly of colouring books or pictures and some felt- tip pens or colouring pencils, plus the odd jigsaw with missing pieces. The frustration was unbearable.”
On discharge, Kenita Watson said she was surprised to be given back her perfume, compact mirror, charging cables, and an array of items that had been confiscated – they had all been stored safely in a box in a locked cupboard with her name on it. “To be honest,” she said, “I had forgotten about most of them. The moment of getting them back, however, was almost symbolic; I was now trusted with items I previously hadn’t been, and with safety, and being given control again. It’s only after a few days at home when I unpacked my suitcase that I was reminded of my experience over and again. As I separated my washing, it hit me like a double-decker bus – that smell; stale, musty, and almost stuffy. Smell is a sense often not given the credit it deserves in my experience.”
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The three concurrent ‘streams’ at the 2021 DiMH conference provided attendees with a good choice of subject matter.
New CQC strategy
This concluded Kenita Watson’s brief, but clearly heartfelt and searingly honest, account of her time as a mental health inpatient, which drew substantial applause from the audience. (I subsequently spoke to her after the conference to go into a little more depth about how she became ill and her inpatient experiences – see pages 10-11)
At this point, Jane Ray re-took the microphone, beginning the second half of the address by highlighting a new CQC strategy. She explained: “Patient safety is at the heart of this; we talk about safety through learning from a culture of safety, and working together collaboratively. We are developing a new assessment framework, with more balance towards supporting innovation.” The framework relates to how CQC personnel conduct their inspections, and collate their data. She said: “We are refreshing all of this to bring it more up to date. When we talk about safety in the mental health sector,” she continued, “these are some of the key areas we have focused on – it’s by no means a full list, but to give you an idea – we’ve done work around sexual safety on mental health wards. We’ve looked at the use of restraint, and focused on mental healthcare for people with physical healthcare needs, and vice-versa. We are
also working in partnership with the National Mental Health & Learning Disability Nurse Directors Forum on ligature risk and therapeutic observations, and undertaking separate work on access to call alarms for both staff and patients. We’ve highlighted the challenges around staffing, and have discussed some of the clinical information systems being used across the country which don’t join up effectively, and are not very easy to use.”
Ligature incidents
Jane Ray continued: “Looking at ligature incidents – and I know a lot of companies here today are developing products to address these – and we’ve seen a 13 per cent rise in 2020 compared with 2019. This is of great concern to us all.” Here the CQC speaker emphasised that audience members and others in the mental healthcare community could access, online via the CQC website, the Commission’s brief guides to inspection teams, co-produced with service-users and professionals working in the field. These cover topics ranging from care systems to same sex accommodation and sexual safety, while the CQC is currently conducting further work on ligature management, therapeutic observation, surveillance, and the use of CCTV – on which further guides would be published soon.
This year’s conference was characterised by some first-class presentations, together with an engaged and knowledgeable audience keen to hear about, and learn from, others’ experiences.
OCTOBER 2021 | THE NETWORK
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