Autumn 2015 Membership Matters
In this issue
• Lunar cycle and expressions • Honouring a pioneer of human nature in mental health • Street Triage - joining forces • Alzheimer’s research on across Sussex verge of breakthrough
The newsletter for members of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Welcome
Dear Member, I would like to welcome you to the autumn edition of Membership Matters. It is also with great pleasure that I offer a warm welcome to our new Governors who were successful in the recent elections and who have now taken a seat on the Council. I hope you enjoy what is a challenging but exciting role within our organisation. In this edition, I’m sure you will be as thrilled as I am to read about the recognition we’re receiving for our award winning work, which is having a direct impact on the experience of our service users. We’re delighted to have four entries shortlisted for this year’s national Positive Practice in Mental Health Awards. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in October (see page 9 for more details). Also earning plaudits is our partnership work to support people when they’re at their most vulnerable, with our Stay Alive suicide prevention app receiving a prestigious Patient Safety Award (see page 8). Our ground-breaking research in the field of dementia took centre stage this summer with the release of drug data which suggests it could slow the advancement of early stage Alzheimer’s. We hope to hear of more positive developments on this in months to come. On the theme of recognition, Sussex Partnership recently unveiled a blue plaque at Aldrington House, honouring the work of Dr Helen Boyle and the contribution she made in the field of mental health treatment (see page 10). Her pioneering work led to a shift in attitudes towards the early detection and treatment of mental health issues in women, particularly those living in poverty. I would like to give special thanks to Karen Braysher for all she has done to acknowledge Dr Boyle’s work and leave this lasting legacy.
Caroline Armitage Chair
2 3 Governors News
Introducing your new Governors Following our recent Governor election we would like to congratulate and welcome our successful members on their appointment.
Elected Constituency Category
Val Armstrong East Sussex Service User
Gabrielle Gardner West Sussex Service User
Michael Decker West Sussex Service User
Amy Mary Rose Herring Outside of Sussex Service User
Claire Quigley Brighton and Hove Public
Liz Sikora West Sussex Public
Terence Pither - Carer
Simon Street - Staff
Governor departures Special thanks to Emma Fordham for her excellent work as Lead Governor along with Graham Taylor, Appointed Governor, for their contributions and support during their time as a Governor.
Should you wish to contact any of your Governors please email: [email protected] More information on all our Governors can be found online at: www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk/council-governors
4 Star Letter
Dear Members, Growing and eating fresh produce is good for you but not everyone has the luxury of being able to for a variety of reasons I started my community project (East Hoathly & Halland Community Garden Plot) in January this year with two main objectives. Firstly to supply fresh vegetables to those households who have to use the food bank and secondly to provide a safe space for those with mental and physical health problems, to learn about growing vegetables and the health benefits of eating them. In addition to the documented benefits to wellbeing for working outside. This project was very much fuelled by my personal lived experience. I have a neurological disease that first manifested itself just over 5 years ago and as a result had a breakdown in my marriage and consequently a catastrophic mental breakdown in January 2014. I feel that the community garden project has been fundamental to my mental health recovery. I am evangelical in helping and encouraging those with a broad range of mental health issues and actively encourage volunteers to talk about their mental health. James For more information on the project and how you can get involved please contact James Hamilton-Andrews on 07500 965530 Star letter or e-mail [email protected]
We would really like to hear what made a positive difference to your mental health, or that of someone you care for. Of course we won’t be able to publish everything that comes in but we guarantee all letters will get a personal reply. Please email your letters to [email protected] or post them to Freepost-RTBT-JXKX-AURH, Membership office, Aldrington House, 35 New Church Road, Hove BN3 4AG 5 Patient Experience
From one lunar-tic to another… By Giles Wright, Service User Governor (Brighton & Hove)
A semi-serious look at the lunar cycle constructions, to an and expressions of human nature… agrarian-based culture. In the context of this publication, it You may be seems inappropriate to start this article wondering what with the dictionary definition of lunacy. the relevance is. Well the connection I’m pretty sure everyone reading this is simple: to a hunter-gatherer, the will already be aware, and probably moon always represented a very useful have spent much time subsequently, light source and a means of measuring developing their own opinions on the the days and seasons of the yearly subject! So let’s just jump right in... calendar. And though we may have radically changed our lifestyles and For instance, Chuck Lorre can be quoted surroundings since, we have actually saying that we are all descended from changed ourselves very little from the a race of beings that went completely hunter-gatherers we used to be. Our insane over 10,000 years ago! Though instincts and our nature or psyche, have clearly tongue-in-cheek, he is referring evolved and changed very little over to the time when we started to that relatively short blip in time... transition from being mere hunter- gatherers living on our wits and our So in these very real senses, the waxing adrenaline, with minimal tools and built and waning of the moon has always
6 Patient Experience
been, and still is, a significant and Similarly full moon provided longer days intrinsic part of humanity’s existence. with light for extended social or visceral Hence it isn’t difficult to understand activities: celebrations, ritual combat, why we may witness abnormal extremes etc. Times when people were positively of behaviour that we loosely associate encouraged to express themselves – and with a full moon. allowances made for excess! We can still see the evidence in much of our Hunting and conflict were always culture today. Many religious festivals precarious tasks, and by their very were purposefully placed in the calendar nature, violent acts. Enabled by the to directly replace their pagan forebears, light of the full moon, it doesn’t seem which had followed the lunar cycle… unreasonable to think there would have been a cyclical pattern to any nocturnal So next time you find yourself losing activities. Nocturnal hunting may not sleep and barking at the moon, or have been the majority provider – but watching a fellow human struggling to during lean times when the significance contain his/her emotions, or another’s of any food source was heightened, seeming excess – all drenched in lunar I can imagine groups of humans avidly light - just remember that all expression awaiting the fullness of the moon to is influenced by our deeply entrenched be able to better nourish themselves; human nature and instincts, which have and surely rallying the associated violent been molded by over 2 million years of traits in an effort to sustain themselves human evolution and culture to ACT-UP physically and spiritually, through the for the full moon! cold nights of hunting or conflict.
7 Trust News
App that hopes to help people stay alive
Did you know there’s a free, award- reasons to live and a mini safety plan winning app available that offers for times of crisis. life-saving support to people who are Other features include a myth-busting thinking about section about suicide and strategies suicide? for coping. Stay Alive is the If you’re working with someone who is first app of its kind at risk of suicide, why not recommend to offer UK-wide the app to them? It’s available to information on download now for free on Android and where to get help iOS via www.sussexpartnership.nhs. if you are thinking uk/urgent-help-crisis about suicide. It’s also a useful Stay Alive recently won a prestigious resource for Patient Safety Award from the HSJ people who are and has been shortlisted for a national worried about Positive Practice Award. someone else. We have worked with Brighton- based charity Grassroots Suicide Prevention to develop the app, which launched on World Suicide Prevention Day in 2014. Since then it has been downloaded more than 4,000 times, with a number of users describing it as a ‘life-saver’. It includes contact details for helplines and a ‘Lifebox’ where users can upload pictures which remind them of reasons Stay Alive recently won a prestigious Patient Safety Award to stay alive. It also holds a list of from the HSJ
8 Trust News
Four front runners
Four entries from Sussex Partnership have been shortlisted for a national Good luck to… mental health awards scheme that will be decided next month. • The EYE project, shortlisted in the ‘patient experience’ The National Positive Practice in Mental category Health Awards has received hundreds of nominations for services and projects • Grassroots Suicide Prevention from across the country that all aim to and the team involved in identify, celebrate and share examples developing the ‘stay alive’ suicide prevention app, of best practice. The winners will be shortlisted in the ‘digital announced on 14 October. technology / social media’ Led by the Positive Practice category Collaboration, the awards scheme • Rachel Dios, shortlisted in is a service user led initiative made the ‘unsung hero nursing up of over 70 organisations involved award’ category in mental health such as the NHS, police and charity sector. • Woodlands Family Project, shortlisted in the ‘innovation Further information about the awards in child, adolescent and is available on the Positive Practice young people’s mental Collaboration website health’ category www.positivepracticemh.com and on twitter @PositivePracti1 and @Tonyr2011. ‘You’ve got people in your A BREAKTHROUGH INITIATIVE organisation who’ve got POSITIVE the vision to understand what we can learn by sharing positive practice.’
Mental Health Collaborative Tony Russell, mental health champion
9 Trust News
Honouring a pioneer in mental health
A commemorative blue Hospital specifically plaque marking the for the treatment of achievements of Dr Helen working class women Boyle, a pioneer in the with nervous disorders. treatment of mental This later became known health, has been unveiled as the Lady Chichester at Sussex Partnership’s Hospital and relocated to Aldrington House in Aldrington House in 1919. Hove. Dr Boyle worked at Dr Boyle (1869-1957) was the hospital until the
Brighton’s first woman GP Royal College of Psychiatrists NHS took over in 1948 and her ground-breaking and Aldrington House approach to treating remained a working mental illness changed the hospital until 1988. lives of countless working Amongst her professional class women. honours Dr Boyle was the After witnessing first-hand first woman president of the mental and physical the Medico-Psychological strain placed on women Association (now the living in poverty, Dr Boyle Royal College of Psychiatrists) was determined to improve the and the first female consultant care available to women in the early psychiatrist at the Royal Sussex stages of mental illness. County Hospital. Alongside her work as a GP she The plaque was unveiled by the Mayor co-founded the Lewes Road Dispensary of Brighton & Hove Councillor Lynda for Women and Children in Hanover Hyde at a celebration ceremony on and later opened the Lewes Road Monday 7 September.
10 The James Gray Collection, photographic archive of the Regency Society Trust News
Alzheimer’s research on verge of breakthrough
Sussex Partnership dementia research However, solanezumab, if successful, is playing a crucial part in efforts to would be the first immunotherapy – develop a ground-breaking drug that disease modifying – treatment to reach could slow the onset of Alzheimer’s. the market. Dr Naji Tabet and Dr Andrew Risbridger, More evidence from this research will be who specialise in old age psychiatry, published next year but initial findings have been looking in to the benefits of suggest this drug could significantly prolonged use of solanezumab in the improve the lives of thousands of people treatment of the disease. with very early stage Alzheimer’s. The team at Sussex Partnership If you would like to get involved or Cognitive Treatment Research Unit is become a member of our Research one of just a small handful of units who Network, please call 01273 265896 or have been working with patients to see email [email protected] if the drug reduces the speed at which the brain declines for those with early stage, or mild, Alzheimer’s. As yet there is no cure for the disease, and those drugs that are available simply work on the symptoms.
Dr Andrew Risbridger (above) and Dr Naji Tabet (right) 11 Charitable Funds
A big thank you
It’s always lovely when I start my It was great to see so many young column with a really big thank people work so hard to make the you and this time we’ve got lots gardens a more therapeutic space of thanks to give! Firstly, a massive for us. thank you to all the fantastic walkers Finally, a big thank you goes to our and runners who took part in our amazing Kent and Medway Home annual Walk for Wards, raising Treatment Team (CAMHS HTT) for an amazing £6,000 for Sussex going above and beyond the call of Partnership wards and services. duty, climbing Mount Snowdon to raise The energy and enthusiasm of our over £1,400 for young people in crisis wonderful walkers, runners and awaiting treatment. Braving winds of volunteers made the day really special over 70mph they did a fantastic job! and big congratulations go to Fin Allen If you’d like to fundraise for Heads On and Letty Raby who were our first male too, it’s almost time for our annual Cake and female finishers, completing the Bake for World Mental Health Day so 5km in half an hour. read on for more details on how to sign Rutland Gardens is our community up and help us support people with inpatient rehabilitation and recovery mental health problems when they unit in Hove and we’d like to say a huge need us most. Thank you! thank you to all the young people from Racheal Duke the National Citizen Service who spent Head of fundraising for Heads On a week landscaping their gardens. 12 Charitable Funds
Blooming Marvellous!
A group of NCS (National Citizen Service) volunteers have transformed our patient gardens at Rutland Gardens as one of their summer 2015 CAKE BAKE community projects. The volunteers Celebrating World Mental Health Day from Brighton & Hove, aged between Friday 9 October 2015 15 and 17, worked incredibly hard to turn our rather tired gardens into a On your marks, get set, bake! If The beautiful space for residents to enjoy. Great British Bake Off has put you They contacted local businesses to in the mood to don your apron, get ask for donations of wood, paint and your creative juices (and jams) flowing plants in order to create new flower and cover the kitchen in flour, the beds, vegetable patches and a gorgeous Heads On Cake Bake is here for you mural of the Brighton sunset. to showcase your most daring and delicious creations. To celebrate World Mental Health Day in October, hold a bake sale for Heads On and raise some dough for people with mental health problems. Sign up today to get your free Fundraising Pack, including balloons, bunting, some great recipes for you to try and plenty of tips and tricks to get the most out of your Cake Bake. “We would like to thank the young Will you rise to the challenge? people and NCS staff for their hard Email: headsoncharity@ work during the project – it has sussexpartnership.nhs.uk made a huge difference to Rutland Gardens and the garden will be Or call Anisa on 07469 351456 enjoyed by many other residents in the future.” Bake the World a Better Place. Feedback from staff at Rutland Gardens Raise some dough for people with mental health problems! 13 Community
by police operators to go to incidents where other police units have arrived Street Triage and have found someone needing immediate expert mental health A police and health service scheme intervention. In many cases this means which aims to help improve services that the Street Triage team can take for people facing mental health over and release the other police crisis is underway across Sussex. resources. Since October 2013 an unmarked The aim is to identify early a person’s police car, crewed by specially briefed needs and divert them directly to local police officers and specialist mental other forms of positive support and health professionals from Sussex treatment. It is hoped that this will Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, also reduce the numbers of incidents in has been working in Eastbourne during which police need to use powers under late afternoons and evenings. Section 136 of the Mental Health Act to detain people for assessment in The mental health professionals come police custody centres. from the Crisis Resolution & Home Treatment Team and the Police Court Initial findings from Eastbourne Liaison and Diversion Service team in demonstrated that the project was Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation proving a really constructive way Trust. The Police officers are from the forward in providing a better public Neighbourhood Response Teams of service, ensuring that the right people Sussex Police. get appropriate treatment, whilst reducing the demand on police The ‘Street Triage’ team, initially resources by: funded by a 12-month grant from the Department of Health, is tasked • Offering professional advice on the spot
14 Community
• Accessing health information systems Example of the work that Street • Helping to liaise with other care services Triage undertook one week in • Identifing the right kind of support East Sussex at the end of July: required for individuals 37 people were seen by the Street Due to the success of the pilot in Triage teams in Eastbourne and Eastbourne the Street Triage model has Hastings. been extended to Hastings, Worthing, The youngest was 15 and the oldest Crawley and Brighton. It is essential was 81 years old, who was a missing to ensure each team is meeting local person. needs so the timings and days of operation vary slightly in each area. 2 people were from out of area, one from London and one from Bradford. 1 person was placed on a s136 and Benefits of Street Triage include: taken to a hospital Place of Safety and • Reduction in s136 detentions 3 s136’s were avoided. • Improved access for patients into 1 person was admitted to hospital primary healthcare on a s2 and 1 person was admitted • Improved patient experience informally. • Early Identification and diagnosis 6 people were taken to A&E for self- • Support and treatment harm by cutting or overdose, or had in the community an underlying medical condition. • Preventing suicide and self-harm 3 people were under the influence of • Reduction in repeat service users alcohol and 2 more under influence presenting in crisis of drugs. • Moving services into the community at the point of crisis 2 people were threatening to harm others and 5 people were threatening • Focus on prevention and preventing to harm themselves and were in escalation of situation considerable distress. • Providing GPs with details of each patient intervention 14 of the people seen by Street Triage • Improved partnership working between were known to mental health services. healthcare and police officers All were seen and assessed and • Improved understanding of mental received support appropriate illness by police to their needs. • Delivering commitments within the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat
15 This is your newsletter Contact the Membership office if: We love to hear your stories, • You know someone else who so keep your letters and articles might be interested in becoming a member. We will send you coming in! a form to pass on If you feel thereContact is information the Membership Contact the Governors Contact the Membership• Any of yourContact contact thedetails Governors or news thatOfficeOffice we haven’t if:if: included change soWhilst that we the can Governors continue cannot act and which you were expecting Whilst the Governors cannot act as • You know someone else whoto keep youas advocatesinformed. for individual cases, advocates for individual cases, they to read, then• You mightlet knowthe be Membership someoneinterested else in who they would like to hear what office know. might be interested in becoming a wouldyou think like toabout hear our what services. you think becoming a member. We will about our services. member.send you We a formwill send to pass you aon form You can write to them via the to pass on Membership Office or email: • Any of your contact details MembershipYou officecan write details: to them via the Contact the• Any Governors of your contact details change MembershipGovernors@sussexpartnership. Office or email: change so that we can continue nhs.uk Whilst the Governors so that cannot we can act continue as to keepFREEPOST [email protected] - RTBT-JXKX-AURH youto keep informed you informed advocates for individual cases, they Membership office AldringtonMembership House Office Office would like to hearThis what is your you newsletter. think If you feel This is your newsletter. If you feel35 New ChurchSussex RoadPartnership Partnership about our services.therethere is is information information or ornews news that that Hove NHS FoundationFoundation Trust Trust wewe haven’t haven’t included included and and which which you Trust Headquarters You can email them at: BN3 4AG Trust Headquarters [email protected] wereexpecting expecting to read, to then read, let then the FREEPOST SEA SEA 14137 14137 Membership Office know. And Tel:keep 0800 0153357 let the Membership Office know. Worthing BN13 BN13 3BP 3BP or you can writeyour to lettersthem via and the articles coming! And keep your letters and [email protected] Tel: 0800 0153357 Membership office: Tel: 0800 0153357 coming! [email protected]
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Published and distributed by: PublishedPublished andand distributeddistributed by: Membership office, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, September 2015. MembershipMembership Office,Office, SussexSussex PartnershipPartnership NHSNHS FoundationFoundation Trust, Trust, Nov August 2011. 2012. www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk www.sussexpartnership.nhs.ukwww.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk
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Members Matters Oct 2011 V2.indd 16 07/11/2011 11:00:16 Members Matters August 2012 V3.indd 16 22/08/2012 09:41