MHM March 2010 - West London Mental Health NHS Trust

Improving serviceuser experiencesAnnual nursing conferenceNurses from all areas of the Trust,and for the first time a number ofour service users, attended this year’snursing conference. Director ofNursing and Patient Experience, SteveTrenchard co-chaired the conferencewith Jules Tennick, a user of ourservices in Ealing.Jules says: “I think it was a positivemove forward for the Trust tohave a service user co-chairing theconference. It gave a positive imageof the abilities of service users, it wasgood for my own confidence and itwas a pleasure to be asked to do this.”Steve Trenchard adds: “The serviceuser experience is now recognisedas one of the three critical elementsof quality. This is one of the reasonsI was pleased that our conferencefocused on improving the serviceuser experience. It gave us a greatopportunity to hear from and learnfrom experts in the field (both staffand patients).“Key messages of the day werethe importance of feeling valuedand to celebrate what works well,and then celebrate it again! Alsoto remove wherever possible anyTime to care at the conferenceThe nursing conferencehighlighted how Timeto Care is improvingpatients’ experience.Carol Scott, DeputyDirector of Nursing,introduced the Time toCare concept by explaining its overall aim: to improvepatients’ experience and therapeutic relationships byincreasing the amount of time nurses have to dedicateto direct patient care. This is achieved through a range ofactivities that fall under the umbrella of Time to Care.Diane Wiles, Headof Nursing for EalingSDU, illustrated theentire Time to Careprogramme in action,highlighting the fantasticachievements made inEaling inpatient services. Joe Ayres from Broadmoorhospital demonstrated ways in which wards havedelivered meaningful therapeutic activities through theStar Wards programme.An Ealing service user gave a heart-warming speechand poetry recital, and emphasised the importance thistherapeutic activity played in his recovery.Sandra Bailey, Head of Nursing for H&F and BernieCollins from the Diversity Unit each discussed ActivityFollows and Respect and Responsibility workshopsrespectively, updating the audience on forthcomingplans and highlighting their importance in improvingpatient experience.The Time to Care project team is nowworking to develop a project implementationplan. If you want any information pleasecontact the project team on x 8464 or 2003.sense of ‘us and them’ in all of ourcommunication and interactions –with each other, with people usingour services and with their friendsand families. A powerful message forme from a number of workshopsand presentations was the need forall staff to have positive attitudes thatsupport optimism and create hopeinspiring relationships.”Tracey McErlain – Burns, Chief Nurseand Director of Patient Experiencefrom The Mid Yorkshire HospitalsNHS Trust spoke about identifying,measuring and improving patientcare. The Trust she works for hasbeen through similar challenges tothose we are facing here. She spokeabout her experiences of fulfilling‘ward to board’ responsibilitiesfor capturing and understandingpatient experience. She sharedher reflections on working in aTrust where change happened andstandards of care improved as aresult of a real focus on the patientexperience.Kath Lovell and Andy Brooker whowork for Emergence, an organisationwhich works to improve experiencesfor people with personality disorder,spoke about the evolving nature ofnursing patients with PD. They spokeabout the importance of consultingpatients and involving them to informservice delivery and improve it.There was also a presentation onTime to Care at West LondonMental Health Trust and howthis is improving the serviceuser experience. A number ofworkshops were held during theday. For example, there was onein which some of our forensicservice users shared their thoughtson recovery. In others staff sharedthe work they had done to usefeedback from service users toimprove care. There was also asession on working with serviceusers to recruit staff at the Trust.In summing up the day Steve said:“Nurses at the Trust gave a veryclear message on the day that thepatient experience is at the veryheart of everything we do. Theconversations throughout the daywere characterised by a sense ofhumility, compassion and honesty.The day gave us the opportunityto reflect on and explore thecomplexities of delivering andreceiving mental health care.”Comments from the day include:“It was good to have serviceusers with us today. It wouldbe good to include some carerstoo, the next time we have aconference.”“It was a fulfilling andinformative event.”“I think we should encouragemore front-line staff to attendthe next time.”“Thank-you to all the service userswho participated – well done!”“It was good day. I learnt a lotand will go away and share itwith others.”8 MENTALHEALTHMATTERSMENTALHEALTHMATTERS 9