For new mothers with mental health conditions, being separated from their babies during treatment can have a devastating impact on their recovery. So too can waiting for a place at a specialist mother and baby unit.
In the case of women referred to the Brockington mother and baby unit, part of South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, processes meant that there was a delay of more than a day between referral and admission. The admission criteria also prevented the unit from accepting women with severe personality disorders, meaning they would be placed in other mental health facilities without their children.
Something needed to change. As part of the trust’s strategy to focus on raising standards, staff and patients take part in workshops to decide what issues need tackling, how to address them and how to measure success. To resolve the problems around admissions to the Brockington mother and baby unit, the trust organised an improvement workshop to make protocols more efficient and review admission restrictions. As a result, the process now takes just over an hour, meaning mothers can enter the unit on the same day they’re referred. And places can be offered to women with severe personality disorders, meaning they can keep their babies with them as they undergo treatment.
Philippa, a former Brockington patient, was admitted for post-natal depression when her son was four months old. She took part in the improvement workshop, alongside the trust’s clinicians, and was impressed by how significantly they reduced the time between referral and admission. She believes the trust’s approach helps keep changes more patient-focused.
“I think it is important for someone who has previously had experience within the service to take part in an [improvement workshop] as I believe that no one understands what helps to aid recovery better than someone who has actually experienced the illness itself and has insight into it.”
Listening to patients
The trust’s new approach to raising standards has been shaped by the Virginia Mason production system, a method that focuses on involving frontline staff in the redesign and improvement of healthcare services.
In addition to quality improvement workshops it has also drawn up a staff charter, which outlines the values it expects of its employees. More than 700 staff and patients were asked their views and listed what they thought the trust’s employees should do on a daily basis: show respect, demonstrate honesty and trustworthiness, care for others, act compassionately, take time to talk and listen, work together and lead by example.
The trust has also invited patients, where appropriate, to get involved in recruitment for the trust, by submitting questions for candidates and taking part in interview panels. When it was recruiting a new chief executive, for example, patients provided feedback on applicants.
Learning from patients
The organisation has also opened a “recovery college”, which offers training for staff, patients, students and the public, on topics ranging from coping with anxiety and understanding psychosis to getting through Christmas. Each course is delivered by two trainers – one trust employee and one current or former patient.
Danni Cook, trust recovery lead partner and recovery college operations manager, says this collaborative approach between staff and patients gives clinicians an opportunity to work with patients at different stages in their recovery, and is key to reducing the stigma around mental health.
As well as enabling patients to reenter the workplace – all course leaders are paid for their time – Cook also says the courses help current and former patients to rediscover their strengths. She explains how one patient who dropped out of university because of terrible anxiety and was terrified of public speaking has transformed since working as a trainer at the recovery college.
“Over the last couple [of] years she’s got really involved in the college and now she’s going back to university to train as an [occupational therapist].” Prior to being admitted to the trust and becoming a trainer, this patient had never imagined that she’d have the confidence to return to university.
Another patient with anxiety, forced to give up her job as a result and who at one stage rarely left her house, started volunteering in the college’s office after completing one of its mindfulness courses and is now considering applying for a full-time role there.
Cook says these are just two examples of how the opportunities offered by the recovery college help those with experience of mental illness realise what they’re capable of.
Click here to find out more about the trust and its work turning lives around.
Content on this page is paid for and produced by the South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
