Even so-called “Angels” & “Heroes” Have Their Limits.

As Dame Donna Kinnair, then Chief Executive Officer and General Secretary asserted on the 1st anniversary of the start of the pandemic, nurses are neither heroes nor angels. She rightly reminded all of us who needed reminding, those of us who were out on the steps clapping or banging saucepans, that they are professionals who are “highly skilled and carrying out a safety-critical job”. Further, in the same interview she says “Old-fashioned stereotypes of nurses as handmaidens of the ward have been rubbished.” (David Doyle, In Your Area, 2021).

I am not a nurse, but even I find the use of the terms “Angels” & “Heroes” deeply demeaning and highly patronising. Dame Donna was being rather optimistic in asserting that the stereotypes have been consigned to the bin. They are still around particularly among those who hold the power and the purse strings.

I am currently an in patient on a mental health unit having had a bad episode of my long term condition – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know most of the staff here well. I have never seen such low morale however nor, indeed, such exhaustion.

Mental Health nurses and Healthcare Assistants are already the poor relations in the NHS family. The oft talked about ‘parity of esteem’ between mental and physical health in reality does not exist. Staff and patients need deeds not words, to quote Emmeline Pankhurst.

During my admission I have witnessed staff having to cope with violently psychotic patients, having to be ultra-vigilant over patients at risk of self harm or suicide, be a listening ear to patients in distress and their worried families, act as security guards, clear up mess, deal with a constant barrage of demands from patients wanting to be accompanied outside so they can smoke – the list is endless.

I am not saying they are all perfect. Every team has bad apples but with staffing levels dangerously unsafe, they need all the staff they can get.

These are specific examples I have witnessed personally:

One morning I was up as usual very early which I like to do before the chaos starts. I noted two patients standing opposite the reception desk being abusive. The two night staff told me they had been doing that incessantly all night without stopping. It had prevented them from having their statutory rest breaks. They are beyond stretched. A medieval rack comes to mind with a wheel cranked by assorted Tories in shifts.

Every single morning of my 12-day stay has started with a palpable feeling of panic as they try to paper over yawning gaps in staffing levels. They shift people round from other wards and rely on bank and agency staff. On this ward according to a senior nurse, they are supposed to have 16 staff in total. Right now they have five. There is no way this degree of staff shortage can guarantee patient or indeed staff safety no matter how dedicated the staff may be.

I have been on both sides of this having been a frequent patient and also run a consultancy where I used my lived experience and what I learned at the NHS Leadership Academy to fight for improvement and patient safety. I understand the pressures staff are under more than most. Patients, particularly those who are detained under a Section of the Mental Health Act, only see staff refusing their requests to be taken outside for a cigarette or to the shops. They can naturally get angry, and this can lead to even more incidents. It’s a particularly vicious circle.

And then there’s the shoddy state of some of the equipment they have to deal with. There are two computers for patients’ use, neither of which work. The washing machines are ancient, the new so-called “safe” bins are not fit for purpose as they block up almost immediately (source – 20 members of staff whom I asked ‘what do you think of the new bins?’ 100% replied ‘rubbish’ and other things not printable here). Yesterday I had to leave early to let cleaners into my flat. I had to leave without my morning meds including pain relief as the computer system had crashed again.

On another ward here on a previous admission the washing machines were so past it, they were shredding people’s clothes so staff were washing clothes by hand for patients. This was not so bad for me as I could go out and use a laundry, however those detained under Section did not have this privilege.

It was a similar story on medical wards. I was on a general medical ward before COVID but post Brexit referendum (just to emphasise that blaming the pandemic for all this is missing the point). Staff shortages were already very obvious.

Half the patients on our bay had dementia. One night there was precisely one Healthcare Assistant on duty responsible for two bays of six beds each and a side room. She had no other help. Our ladies needed to be watched constantly as one of two would try to get out of bed and could potentially injure themselves. With all the will in the world, there was no way this single HCA could keep an eye on all the patients. Nurses are amazing but cannot see through walls.

One lady was very adept at getting out of bed and had an ability to sprint like an Olympic athlete. Three of us who did not have dementia took it in turns to watch these ladies and alert the HCA if there was an escape attempt. This lovely Jamaican lady got out of bed and started sprinting down the corridor at great speed followed by me in my regulation hospital pyjamas.

The next morning the lady told me ‘I feel mucky’. I helped her have a shower as there was no-one available to assist her among the staff. I had never even given my own mother a shower so it was quite an experience

Later I found out that Matt Hancock had been in the hospital that night pretending to do a night shift in Paediatrics for a photo op. There was a sickening picture of him in immaculate freshly pressed scrubs surrounded by nurses with very forced looking smiles. I swear if I had known I would have gone down there and frogmarched him up to our ward so he could see the reality rather than the Potemkin Village.

In essence I don’t just blame the government for this though they are by far the main culprits. I have also seen such waste. When I had a two-year contract with the NHS Horizons team. It would appear to have been a vanity project for one ‘leading lady’ of the NHS.

It involved running events in which NHS ‘leaders’ were encouraged to throw scrunched up paper with a ‘pledge’ on it & then have a paper snowball fight. On another occasion, a very shouty American-style seminar involved creating something (out of pipe cleaners & coloured card etc) we thought the NHS would look like in 20 years. My table was made up of very senior clinicians who looked horrified. I told myself ‘if this descends into Interpretive Dance, I am out of here’. Sure enough, one group got up, plugged in a phone, happy clappy music started and I, along with other introverts, raced to the door to get out.

We also spent a long time being paid to come up with a new ‘strap line’ for the NHS. The result? “Change is Changing”. Change changed so frequently as these Transformistas, as I called them, were like magpies. They’d pick up some shiny new thing from say, the Harvard Business Review, and be all excited to the point of euphoria. By the time said transformation reached the grass roots where the hardest work is done for the lowest pay, the Transformistas had moved to the next shiny thing.

So yes. There needs to be more funding from the government, safe staffing levels, and pay commensurate with the level of responsibility. In addition though, there has to be some kind of independent inquiry into value for money to ensure that such funds that the NHS has are being targeted to the areas of greatest need. This means no more gimmicks, abolition of ego trips and focus on the basics. The basics include an end to antiquated IT systems, an end to staff having to use the torch on their personal phones to check patients’ eyes, no more running out of drip stands, and above all ensuring that staff do not have to forgo their breaks or even the chance to go to the toilet due to the shortages of staff.

I conclude this blog with a quote from the Royal College of Nursing:

‘Strike action is a last resort. But it can be a powerful tool for change. Unfairly low pay in our profession is driving chronic understaffing. It puts patients at risk and leaves nursing staff overworked, underpaid and undervalued.’

If you care for patient safety, you will support this strike. Nurses cannot pour from an empty vessel for much longer. I will be joining picket lines as a patient advocate who supports this strike. Enough is enough.

Slightly less mad.

Featured

Woke up after a night of feverish nightmares in which I thought I had lost Izzy. The American had killed her. I briefly had no idea where I was and why my window was half covered by one orange curtain. Then I remembered. I was back in the bin. I believe Therese Coffey in he brief but groundbreaking tenure as Secretary of State for Health & social care introduced not only a ban on the Oxford Comma, but introduced a pilot It’s Curtains for the NHS initiative where each window has a single curtain. Brilliant.

All of this was with the background of pneumatic drilling and banging right outside my door as Peabody Trust, our landlord, decided to choose to start major renovations while all residents were in the grip of serious trauma.

I attended Dramatherapy which I find intense but helpful, During the relaxation exercise I realised how tense I was round my neck an shoulders. I felt the sensation of an emotional tsunami rising up to sweep me away. I realised the stress and terror of recent times were still stored in my body.

During the group, I was summoned to see the Psychiatrist who seems to have an uncanny knack of choosing when I am in a therapy group, to summon me to ward round. However, I rate him highly as he treats me as a whole person, not just a walking bag of symptoms. I am treated genuinely as a partner in my care and as such, I trust him. This is a first in over 20 years in the ‘the system’. Ward rounds are intimidating as the Psychiatrist is flanked by another doctor and a nurse at the very least and very often a crowd of students. I never refuse to have students present as they need to see practice in action, not just through books & lectures. He made a few adjustments to my meds and advised me to engage with AA while here. A Psychiatrist who understands addiction is a very rare beast.

I returned to the group for the last 20 minutes. We had to choose cards and construct a story based on what we had chosen. I chose mine at random. Mine included a fire scene of destruction, a Ukrainian vinok (flower crown with ribbons, and the other card was a a set of scales with the background blue at the top and yellow at the bottom.

The other patients are a mixed bag as we are all thrown in together. People can be very Ill very demanding and some, I am afraid, seem stuck in a never-ending cycle of destruction then punishment, refusal to be allowed out even accompanied and at worse, forcibly restrained. This is thankfully very rare but when it happens, it is utterly shocking. Most here are highly intelligent and creative. it is a waste not to take heed of our insight.

I could tell right away that there is a serious shortage of staff in the unit. it means staff are brought in from other wards. So are agency staff who have never been to the ward before, and with all that comes a feeling of panic that is palpable. That panic seems to pass on to some of the patients who then start to cause their own individual methods of mayhem. That of course exacerbates the problem. There is a domino effect that seems to be happening most if not every day.

I felt slightly better later in the day and so struggled home to check on Izzy. I had no idea how depleted my energy has become. I have to visit her daily this as her Uncle Tommy who used to look after her died shortly after the second evacuation of the building by terrorist police. I don’t want her usual cat sitter who is a young girl on her gap year after school, in the flat in case the American targets her.

There is a very large mountain to climb to get my sense of self back. The physical bit I can do, but the deep-rooted trauma brought screaming to the surface due to the neighbour being apparently very serious about killing me will take a very long time.

On the positive side. I am no longer alone in my flat shaking in terror. I am in a safe place, putting my shattered self back together and for that I am truly grateful.

#FairPayForNursing

Co-production – Radical Roots, Radical Results

Beyond Buzzwords

It is so frustrating to see truly radical and potentially powerful concepts being latched upon by those entrenched in the “system”. And when they are done with hijacking these terms and rebranding them to death, they make up their own. Classics I have heard recently: UnDiffusing, UnPrescribing and the famous decision by Sussex Partnership to relabel patients on acute MH wards as “Service Leader” even in the case of an enquiry into inappropriate use of restraint. To render the staff sufficiently “special and different” they are now termed Leader Leaders with their own Leader Leadership Academy.

In other words, WIA has become a documentary:

Co-production is one such buzzword very often used as a rebadging of patient/service user involvement. I see widespread co-option and dilution of more radical concepts like this in order perhaps to be able to slot them into existing structures without the risky and scary business of actual change.

Defining the Indefinable

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) defines Co-production as follows: “Co-production means delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change” (NEF 2009)

The key words are “equal” “reciprocal” and “agents of change”.

It is NOT a synonym for public engagement, service user involvement or consultation. It is NOT just allowing people a say in decisions about themselves individually or collectively, and above all it is not something which retains power in the hands of professionals with the patient or service user brought in at a later stage.

As Jane McGrath @WeCoproduce of West London Collaborative rightly states
“I regularly have to challenge very senior people and we often get stuck at some point during the process. This usually revolves around denial of one consistent and very inconvenient truth: patient involvement is not co-production.”

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2016/10/co-production-inconvenient-truth

If we know what is NOT, then what IS it?

The term was first coined by Elinor Ostrom at Indiana University whose receipt of the Nobel Prize came as a surprise to many. Read more about her here:

http://educationnext.org/nobel-prize-winner-elinor-ostrom-and-her-theory-of-co-production/
The key point she was making was that public services were shown to work best when designed and run by a combination of professional expertise and community insight. Ostrom’s work divides participation into individual and collective levels. This is very relevant to health care. We can participate as individuals in terms of how we take responsibility for our own health and in sharing decisions with professionals but we can also link up with others either with similar issues or set of values to participate on a wider level in order to influence change as a powerful group. For more on Ostrom’s thinking developed in a healthcare context take a look at this article:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/victor-pestoff/here-comes-citizen-co-producer

Looking behind the buzzword early on by going right back to its roots created in me a pilot light that ignites when genuine Co-production is present and a warning bell that rings when it is being talked about but is there in name only.

The trouble with defining co-production is that it is primarily a reframing of the traditional citizen recipient/service provider relationship – from parent/child to adult/adult. it is more of a mindset than a model hence the difficulty faced by those in a system that relies on boxes and spreadsheets. Those who feel naked without a precise definition are undoubtedly likely to feel very threatened for it is not a model, it is a way of being, acting and thinking. It is about seeing people not just as bundles of needs but as possessors of assets irrespective of how “throwaway” society may consider them.

“Throwaway People” was coined by Professor Edgar Cahn. Cahn, a US civil rights lawyer and speechwriter for Robert Kennedy, suffered a massive coronary at 45. Pondering in his hospital bed upon the resulting apparent loss of who and what he was before he became ill and how that felt, he went on to found the Time Banking movement. This provided a vehicle to make Co-production a reality – the practical means to see to see those declared useless by society for whatever reason, valued for their assets, skills and life experience.

I read his seminal work “No More Throwaway People” and it immediately resonated particularly regarding the feeling that his heart attack seemed to rob him of more than just his health.

“I didn’t like feeling useless. My idea of who I was – the “me” that I valued – was someone who could be special for others, who could do something they needed. And here I was, a passive recipient of everyone else’s help” (Cahn, 2000)

Are we blobs or squares?

We true co-producers are brave enough to pitch our tent in the no-man’s land between the factions which provides that space where we can venture out of the bunkers and over the patient/professional demarcation lines.

The Parable of the Blobs and Squares was created by Edgar to explain the complex issues around identity which may arise when people endeavour to put the theory of Co-production into practice.

Are we blobs or squares? Does your job title or other labels require you to change your basic shape in order to fit?

Or are you perhaps safer in the “patient” box? I was consigned to this box early on and though it was dark in there, it started to feel way safer.

Bridge builders

How do we bridge the gap between two tribes of “them” versus “us” in practice?

As a healthcare professional you may be under pressure of deadlines and in possession of an ever-dwindling budget. Suddenly you are being challenged by patients to be less controlling. As a patient, I might have become ground down and cynical after years of attending events labelled “co-production” where the status quo has remained firmly in place and the locus of control firmly still in the hands of paid professional. I might be wheeled out to be “inspirational” while all the time screaming internally “but I could do so much MORE if you would let me!” This is where the Bridge Builders come in.

My thinking around this as usual came about from a very uncomfortable situation. I was delighted to be asked to work on a stand at the prestigious BMH/IHI Quality and Safety Forum alongside team members from the part of the NHS with which I was working as a Patient Leader. Shortly after arrival I was asked hastily to leave the stand as apparently did not have a formal NHS contract. Suddenly my “otherness” my “outsider” status was painfully clear. It was tough. I yearned to be a worker among workers, a friend among friend after such a long time in the wilderness. I had not worked due to illness for 17 years at this point. Trying to find “my” people, I sought out the Patient Panel and was not part of that either as I had not applied to join. I found myself in that no man’s land not at all sure who or what I was. Had I now morphed into a professional and therefore lost my “patienthood” or was I simply a patient trying and failing to be seen as a professional? Once the discomfort subsided I reflected on the fact that, though very uncomfortable, it was exactly where I needed to be.

I prefer to be a bridge builder rather than stranded on the banks. We Bridge-builders occupy the often uncomfortable space between patients/carers/citizens on one side and the demands of the system on the other. Dealing with Leaders for whom the ceding of control to a group of “outsiders” can be particularly challenging. That’s the thing about being a bridge, for people to meet in the middle the bridge must be strong enough to bear the weight. When we do this, it becomes less important whether we were labelled “patient” or “professional” but more that we work collaboratively, and broker trusting relationships to enable both “sides” to meet half way. A strong network will have these bridge builders, people who are able work across traditional boundaries while not losing that which makes us different.

Who are the bridge builders in your organisation who will broker the relationships across boundaries that are needed for it to be a network rather than a club?

Timebanking as a catalyst for Co-production

Timebanking is a useful tool to enable organisations to make traditional patient and public involvement more co-productive by addressing the key core principle of reciprocity.

After many years giving my time for nothing as an active service user I felt at times undervalued as often the only unpaid person present facing an over-riding assumption that the only skills and experience I had were those related to my illness. I was not motivated by material gain but wondered what these assumptions said about my worth.

Here is a very useful summary of the first part of the book from Timebanking New Zealand. The woman who wrote it earned Time Bank credits for her efforts:

http://www.timebank.org.nz/node/87

There was something about Cahn’s examination of what worth and value can mean that really spoke to me.

Filipe et al describe in the excellent article “The co-production of what? Knowledge, values, and social relations in health care” how Co-production/Timebanking can redefine our often overly rigid understanding of “worth”:

“This (Co-production) may generate new forms of care other than health care ( inclusive relationships, solidarity), values beyond economic value ( equity, justice), and new insights and research practices that are relevant to different disciplines and practices (community participation, patient advocacy, collaborative research)”.

I decided to try see the how the academic theories worked in practice by working on a Timebanking basis at the Holy Cross Centre Trust in Camden where Cahn acted as an adviser. I got paid for every hour of my time in one Time Bank credit. I had a range of activities I could choose from theatre tickets to guitars lessons but I “spent” my credits on accredited training. Being tangibly rewarded for my time restored a sense of worth that the years of illness, unemployment, passivity and largely tokenistic service user involvement had removed. It changed how I viewed myself. Here in my hand at the end of my three-hour shift was visible proof that I still had something to give.

An example of the sort of exercise that help clarify the mindset involved in Time-banking and Co-production. It can be made really interesting by banning anything connected to professional identities:

David Boyle explores this concept further in the following article from the Guardian Healthcare Network:

http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2015/feb/06/time-banks-patients-lives-long-term-conditions

Timebanking is just one of many ways in which patients/service users can be given a tangible indication of the level at which our contribution is valued. Many of us are unable to accept money or choose not to. My contributions were recognised in the form of genuine opportunities for training and development such as my Improvement Leaders’ Fellowship with CLAHRC North West London and being given a place on one of the NHS Leadership Academy programmes. These were life changing opportunities that enabled me to reconnect with the skills and assets that had become frozen over the long period of my illness and gain new ones.

I wrote more on my personal experience of this in this blog for the NHS Leadership Academy

http://www.leadershipacademy.nhs.uk/blog/learn-participating-mary-seacole-programme/

Our health and social care services cannot afford to allow the insight and other life skills that people using health and social care services possess, to continue to go to waste. The only way forward is genuine collaboration – that powerful bringing together on an equal basis of lived experience and professional expertise. This can be challenging for all concerned. It involves redefining our jobs which may have become part of our very identities, coming out of comfort zones and being prepared to admit that we may at best only have part of the answer.

In Co-production: Manifesto for Growing the Core Economy Cahn warns in the foreword of the consequence of failing to heed this message:

“We will be unable to create the core economy of the future so long as we live in a bifurcated world where all social problems are relegated either to paid professionals or to volunteers whose role is typically restricted to functioning as free labour within the silos of the non-profit world. It will take massive labour of all kinds by all to build the core economy of the future – an economy based on relationships and mutuality, on trust and engagement, on speaking and listening and caring – and above all on authentic respect. We will not get there simply by expanding an entitlement system which apportions public benefits based on negatives and deficiencies: what one lacks, what disability one has, what misfortune one has suffered….Finally, because timebanking and co-production grow out of my own life and work in the civil rights movement, I have to add that hell-raising is a critical part of coproduction and of the labour that it entails and must value. Those with wealth, power, authority and credentials hold those assets as stewards for those who came before and in trust for those yet unborn.”

I echo Cahn’s rallying cry. This is very far from the rather safe world of traditional patient and public involvement so often talked about as Co-production. It can feel messy and risky. But if we are able to take the risk to emerge from our boxes of “patient” or “professional,” and venture into the territory where boundaries are blurred, and both “sides” are prepared to walk in the shoes of the other, then we have the potential to create something radically new. This is not about professionals having to relinquish power in an already chaotic and uncertain climate, but about strengthening the power base so there is more of it to go around.

Edgar Cahn called me a hellraiser when we met. It takes one to know one. Let’s resist the dilution into nothing of Co-production, reclaim the term and dare to become Hellraisers to keep its flame burning.

Further reading

Back to Bedlam

“Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are. (Siri Hustvedt, The Summer Without Men)”

Grief is unpredictable.

Only now, have I started to experience the feeling of utter emptiness one moment, anger at being abandoned by my best friend who was my rock, and crucially, the desire to be with him and Elaine. The latter is what has landed me back in hospital. I was released too soon according to the Consultant, hence for a week now I have been back. When I found out by chance at Elaine’s memorial in Glasgow Cathedral, that I had been excluded from Donald’s funeral, that is when is started.

What I needed was rest, quiet, and feeling that I was safe. These basics that I might have considered the fundamentals of “care” were conspicuous by their absence. I was initially in a mixed ward dominated by two characters who were self-confessed drug dealers. At least one of whom I know is fit for discharge but awaiting housing. They were constantly abusive, sexist, ageist, disablist, and racist. They were anti-white, anti-Asian and particularly abusive to African staff and patients.

A friend of mine who was on the ward I happened to have known for at least 10 years from elsewhere. She is a beautiful, intelligent African woman. She was harassed by the two ward-based gangsters for “sitting at the WHITE table”. They were from the Caribbean so had a loathing of Africans,. We had a charming older Asian gentleman on the ward who was always turned out in his suit and tie. They took his walking stick from him and started pretending to be bent over, old men. It was heart breaking to watch, and it happened right in front of staff at reception. They did nothing. Selective Blindness Disorder would be my diagnosis.

The bellowing was absolutely constant. They would play abusive rap music at top volume during meal times when we had not choice other than to be together.

How does one manage extreme loss and associated depression in such a background? I was terrified. At least, as an informal patient, I could go out. It was coming back that was the problem. I had such a panic attack on the bus on the way back I thought I was having a heart attack and so did the other passengers.

These two were particularly fond of invading the space of female patients. I found myself having to describe my uterine bleed in front of an audience of these men.

Meds were done over a counter in a queue. These two would stand listening over my shoulder so they know all about my health issues. They diagnosed me themselves as being a “fat, ugly, white pig”. I am very self conscious about the now visible enormous fibroid. I hate my appearance anyway and so they managed of course to go straight for my Achilles heel.

Vital signs including weight were also taken in a public space in the reception area with the results shouted from one member of staff to another who would write them down. I refused to go through this public spectacle, and was met with a sigh and extreme reluctance.

Likewise my request to have my daily bag search to be done in private was met with resistance even after the CEO had intervened and my consultant assured me I could have privacy. The “system” was that I was expected to have my bag searched on arrival back on the ward by offloading, say, things from home such as underwear & the range of pads I need for uterine bleed on the reception counter. This would have been highly entertaining for the ward Underworld. I asked for it to be carried out in in private. Again this request was met with extreme unwillingness on.

My rape trauma is uppermost in my mind right now due to all the gynae treatment I am having. During those consultations, I can freeze and be completely unable to move. I try to move my arm but it won’t obey. Being barged into and otherwise physically invaded by large men was beyond intolerable. I was drowning in grief and the ward atmosphere weighed me down even further.

Staff reactions varied. They would tell them to stop which was about as effective as a cholcolate kettle. One, a Ghanaian to whom they referred as a “monkey” would explode in anger. That gave this pair the extra impetus for the whole thing to escalate further. I was waiting for physical violence to break out ALL the time.

My excellent consultant and others came up with a plan. The two would be separated as they got worse when they were together. They would be moved to different wards although this was passing the problem on as there only mixed wards in the hospital. Another group of women would be equally traumatised. During my trip home I felt for once safe coming back. However, the first thing I saw was the two of them up to their usual hate speech. They had NOT been moved and were not going to be. This I found out was without the knowledge of the Consultant. I was moved to another ward and…found there was no room in the Women’s Area which had been a refuge in the previous ward. Now I had no refuge at all. I was also right outside the nurses’ station meaning I had shouting, loud laughter, patient details being relayed into my room meaning confidentiality is non-existent. I need peace and quiet, not the cacophony of patients and staff all shouting at once.

I could not believe I had been moved for my own safety to an even less safe ward in which there was no safe haven. Out of the frying pan into the fire comes to mind. That first night there, I sat on the floor and cried my eyes out I couldn’t even Tweet other than pictures to try to get over how I felt.

Luckily, the men on the ward have been lovely. I had dinner with three of them last night and we had such an interesting conversation. This would NEVER have happened on the other ward. I am aware that anything could change in these environments on the head of a pin.

This is NOT the problem of one Trust. It is system-wide. Lack of staffing means people are already stretched to the limit so spending their whole time trying to manage anti social behaviour and deal with the effects of the abuse on patients and other staff, has created a pressure-cooker atmosphere. Some deal with this by becoming completely shut off and merely go through the motions via endless “checks”. There are NOT checks as to whether we are feeling alright or might need support, they are simply to record our presence on the ward. They are a useful means for staff to avoid actually having to feel anything.

I read this excellent blog https://grumblingappendix.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/ticks-all-the-boxes-the-rise-and-rise-of-defensive-nursing/ from which I now quote.

One of these less palatable consequences is extension of risk aversion out of the realm of physical risks and into the realm of communication. Where nurses’ mindset is conditioned by the prioritising of risk minimisation, fear of upsetting someone by ‘saying the wrong thing’ becomes entirely justifiable. From there, it’s a short step to ducking out of meaningful communication altogether, and taking refuge in ‘this important paperwork I’ve got to get through’. An even bigger problem is that all the box-ticking and form-filling potentially reduces the nurse’s subconscious conceptualisation of the patient to nothing more than an atomised collection of checklists and discourages nurses from original thinking.

The checks done by rote with little or no humanity can have dreadful consequences on patient dignity. A ward friend has given me permission to write about what happened to her last week. She had come out of the shower and was heading across the room naked to pick up towels and she found she was being observed through the window on the door by a male member of staff clipboard in hand doing his “checks”. Dignity is way down the list when it comes to the priority of ticking boxes.

The CQC states this about right to patient dignity:

“People have a right to feel and be safe while accessing treatment in mental health wards. As the quality regulator, our priority is to ensure that people using healthcare services are kept safe and that their privacy and dignity are maintained. This means ensuring that patients are protected from sexual safety incidents, and supporting patients who may behave inappropriately.

They have clearly failed in bringing these fine words into reality

I propose:

That more training is carried out in de-escalation techniques.
That wards are adequately staffed by qualified permanent staff rather than seemingly random Bank Staff
That a specific focus be made in existing Trauma-informed training on the potential impact on women who have experienced sexual abuse from being on mixed wards. This training should be patient-led.
That it is acknowledged that having female-only areas is far from sufficient due to the need to share space for meals, queuing for medicine, seeing doctors etc.
That practical steps are taken to ensure dignity eg vital signs and bag searches take place in private, and these measures be brought in without delay.
That a real commitment be made to eradicate mixed sex wards altogether.

For those wishing to make a start, please consider signing this petition started by Rivkah Grant @Rivkah_g after her own horrific experiences on mixed wards:

“Psychiatric wards are still allowed to be mixed-sex meaning patients are unable to get food, drink, medication, see visitors or the doctor without going through mixed-sex areas. This can be distressing especially for those who have already been through trauma in a ward in the past. This must change.

I have been to mixed-sex wards and have spoken with many people about the problems these cause. There is no room in mental health care for such places. These are not safe places for the vulnerable.”

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/260312

And her very recent blog on her experiences which are actually worse than mine given that my Trust to engage with me rather than rough me up….

https://lawanddisordered.com/2019/06/29/where-are-our-safe-spaces/

As for me now, I remain very weak and incredibly sad over so much loss. It is enough some days just to put one foot in front of the other. I am emotionally and physically drained but I must try to keep going as there is much to be done.

All’s well on the Potemkin Ward.

It has been a challenging week and no, not just for me. I was admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital due to what I assumed were new developments in the pain around the fibroid which will require major surgery. I was admitted as the lactate levels in my blood were of real concern and these were caused by convulsions.

To manage my epilepsy, I was told I must avoid stress.

Then I get a double-whammy of communiques from the DWP requiring me to prove to them that I am not just a lying wastrel by presumably having a fit and being doubly incontinent right in front of them otherwise I will tick the “perfectly well” box.

How pray tell, does one avoid stress under these conditions? If you know, please let me know.

I started the process of trying, with help, to fill in the lengthy and largely irrelevant form. I don’t remember much about that day. I know my pain levels increased to level ten on the one to ten scale and I know that by Monday I was having fit after fit. I think I counted seven.

What I now know is I also had a fit on the Friday during the process of filling in the form. The scary thing is I remember nothing about that. Nothing. I usually get an aura which gives me a window to get myself in the recovery position but this time nothing. My brain clearly decided to shut me down as the stress would short-circuit me altogether.

In A&E I was told “you are very unwell (I am sure that is a euphemism for you are about to peg out) and have to be sent up to a ward”.

In A&E a psych liaison not working with me as for once I was deemed not to need one, made me a cup of tea so good that I said he must have been Scottish in a previous life. Then the delightful B appeared on the scene. She is another RMN & had realised I was in A&E. She is a force of nature. She dresses in a style I would call Afro-Eclectic. It was on this occasion a full length purple Nigerian dress over sparkly leggings and sequined trainers. The current hairstyle is 70s Afro. I love this woman. She is wise and does not hold back in terms of giving me a stern talking to. She has sat with me on suicide watch so often. She took time to sit with me and chat about anything and everything.

She actually made me laugh.

I had wanted to die.

This one nurse made me laugh enough to want to live, and it was not even her job to take care of me.

After that I got transferred to the Acute Assessment Unit in the part of it they call “trollies”. They are not trollies but I think it is just to be seen as a sort of transit centre – the Staten Island of Chelsea and Westminster.

There I found myself helping out a woman with dementia who could only speak French. The staff knew the boundaries but it helped to have me shout from the opposite bed “she is saying she has peed herself”. An enterprising and utterly magnificent Irish nurse was using Google translate so getting it horribly wrong which again gave me something to laugh about. I told her later she was totally getting through to the lady not because of Google but because she was a natural communicator.

From there I was moved precisely one bay along to where the “trollies” (which are in fact beds) officially become “beds” (which are exactly the same as the trollies). I do hope you are following this, dear reader. I spent the night there, or rather what was left of it. The trouble around all these moves, is that they create more opportunities for gaps in processes. Information from A&E had already gone astray by the time I got to be a “trolly dolly”. There were further errors after the move 50 metres away to the “non-trollies”. I had to be so on the ball about what had been said and agreed. I had had seven seizures, my brain was not in great shape but I can’t help think of those who for example had dementia or those whose first language was not English for example.

Early next morning, I was told I was to be moved to an actual ward.

As usual in the bed-hopping process, information had disappeared down chasms never to be seen again. This mean that I had to spend a night with no pain relief at all as the Buprenorphine patches which I was told would be prescribed were in fact not prescribed. That was one very long night. I did not sleep at all.

The next night was also rather long. There was it seemed, only one nurse on duty who was not even from our ward, to cover at least 17 beds which meant doing medication and trying her best to keep an eye on vulnerable patients many of whom had dementia. This is one of the specialisations of the ward I was on. And of course she quite rightly had to have a break leaving us basically on our own. One lady was very distressed and kept getting out of bed and heading off down the corridor. She was unsteady but, boy, she moved with purpose.

How can it be safe to have one member of staff trying to concentrate on dispensing meds in the middle of a ward where chaos was only ever a hair’s breadth away? Could this be why errors happen? (Rhetorical question).

That is when we patients and one carer sitting with her critically ill mother stepped in. We patients monitored the movements of this lady and guided her back to bed whenever she took off, which was frequently.

By morning it felt as though we had done a night shift ourselves.

It was then staff started to confide in me about staff shortages. I believe one or two of them follow me on Twitter so they saw me as an ally. I got so incensed about what they were telling me, I tweeted the new Secretary of State Matt Hancock. It was about 4am. Little did I know he was in the building at that time on a massive PR exercise as illustrated by his photo the next day with a crowd of smiley staff – at least six times more of them than we had on duty. He needed to be where the reality is not in PR land.

One of the doctors told me another doctor had binned the happy clappy script and given the SoS some home truths, funnily enough saying exactly the same things I was saying in my Tweets about staffing levels. He had the guts to say what they were likely all thinking. Have his comments and courage been met with the gratitude they deserve? Somehow, I doubt it. As for you, Secretary of State, I hope you enjoyed your night with us, but please be aware that elsewhere in the very same hospital patients were having to provide patient safety as the sole nurse had had to take a break. Yes, digital is the future or at least a vital part of it, but if and only if the basics have been addressed.

The results on our ward were staff on short fuses though doing their very best, staff running from task to task, staff with no time to talk to patients, to comfort them, to reassure them – all sorts of things that used to define the caring professions. And as for errors? When plates are constantly spinning with only one person trying to keep them in the air, they are going to start smashing on the floor. Only these are not plates, these are people, and in that, I include the staff themselves. I saw a number of talented young HCAs and nurses running on passion and adrenaline alone. I know to my cost where that takes you.

As for me, I got through what was a terrible week thanks to my Twitter family and my ward family. I also got by by being useful. I bonded with a lovely Moroccan lady who understood French so again I found myself helping out with the communication. She understood me anyway. Her daughter helped translate some of her observations of me. This 90-something felt I needed to be kinder to myself. She also said I had a big heart. She pointed to her own heart, then pointed at me after I stepped in to sort out the utter balls up around her discharge. I loved her too. I wish I could have known more about her life. I bet a lot of staff wish they could do the same, but how on earth can they even get as far as “Hello my name is” under these circumstances?

Let’s pause a moment to talk about discharge. Surely this should be a seamless process given that information about discharge date is generally available a couple of days in advance. This lovely lady was told she was going home, which she was desperate to do, at 6pm. By six she was already in her outside clothes, clutching her belongings in her hospital issue plastic bag. Her face was wreathed in smiles as she waited finally to go back to her own bed. Her daughter who had been interpreting, had gone to her home ahead of her to make sure it was all ready for her.

Then she waited some more.

Then more.

At no point did anyone try to talk to the lady.

After she waited in bed in her outdoor clothes for three hours I had had enough as I could see she was getting visibly distressed. I was told all was in hand as the daughter was on the phone etc.

We waited some more.

By this time, the old lady was so distressed, I was distressed to look at her as was the retired NHS employee in the next bed. Thankfully there was a change of shift and two total stars came on duty – one HCA who oozed common sense, and a nurse, a real nurse. They told me the truth. I always appreciate that. I can work with that no matter how bad it is. It turned out that a fax had been sent to transport who claimed not to have received it. Two things come to mind. One, why on earth is the NHS still using faxes when according to the new SoS we won’t even need to go into hospital, we will send in our Avatar instead? Secondly, did anyone read the fax report that would show whether it had been received? We were now 4 hours on and the poor lady was still lying there in tears, not understanding a word any well-meaning member of staff tried to tell her. She had only Arabic and basic French.

I was by this time being treated as some de facto carer though up to my eyeballs on Oramorph and in my PJs. I was asked to assure her in French the transport would be there in 90 minutes. I decided to make it two hours as I had an odd feeling about NHS timescales already.

She was happy enough with that. Then, ten minutes later – I think by now we were five hours after the time she was told she was going home – I was asked to translate that there was…err…a new development. There WAS transport but…it was in Peckham. I took an executive decision at this stage to suggest we explain to her that there was no transport for that night so if she had a good sleep, we could make sure she got home early in the morning. My neighbour asked me to tell her she was safe as she was among friends, meaning the other patients.

She then of course needed help to get back into a nightie, her bed tidied and basically given some TLC. I tried and failed to get any staff to do this as they were already hassling to arrange the transport for the next morning. The other patients arranged it. The two staff on shift were not responsible, they had been handled a massive comedy of errors by the shift before which consisted of one HCA with zero common sense and an agency nurse who had never been there before.

Once our lovely friend settled down to sleep I was so strung out I went out for a walk round the deserted hospital. In the end I went right outside to the Tesco over the road and bought donuts. It was after 11pm.

Next morning eventually transport came. I helped her back on with her cardigan and we patients stood to wave her off on her stretcher. She waved all the way along the corridor and did not let go of my hand until she reached the outside door to the ward. Tears were streaming down my face by this time.

There are a number of issues here but a major one is whether there is ANY effective communication between transport and the hospital proper.

Also, there was a distinct feeling that between the group of six patients, we had more skills of use than the original team present. There was a carer, one retired NHS employee who had 30 years experience, and there was my ability to communicate in whatever language that gets thrown at me.

But I was not there as a roving troubleshooter, though time and time again that is what I become, I was there as I was in great need myself:

Often I sat on my bed in tears. I was desperate for a kind ear. I was in a lot of pain so much so I was on Oramorph. I was sick to the core with fear over the DWP. I found my bank account had had some fraudulent activity go on which meant I had been cleaned out. Finally I had a perfunctory email from the Royal College of Psychiatrists advising me that “on this occasion I had been unsuccessful” blah blah, for a role on which I had set my heart. I could have made a real difference in terms of giving me a purpose and some peace of mind, and it played exactly to my strengths. After getting the news, it seemed at that point I did not even have any strengths. I felt like a punch bag. I recalled Orwell’s metaphor of a boot stamping on a face forever.

But no-one had time to talk to me, and as I didn’t want to upset my ward mates, I did most of my crying in the loo.

One spate of crying appeared at the same time as lunch. I sobbed into my Korma. Once again, I felt I wanted to die, but there was no-one to tell. They just do not have the time. I am not saying they don’t care. They care deeply. Why else would they turn up every day or night for more of the same? Are they being given the chance to use the skills in real caring and compassion, the values that made them enter the profession? Of course they are not. This is about plate-spinning.

If you enter Chelsea and Westminster Hospital you will think you are in a rather nice, if a tad over-the-top, hotel. There is a beautiful art collection, a luxury cinema, an indoor palm tree garden, opera regularly in the atrium, numerous dining choices and occasionally, should one be so inclined, one might purchase a cashmere pashmina from Johnston’s of Elgin or a new set of pearls.

Until such time as these systemic issues i.e. the gaps in processes that lead to time-consuming games of Chinese Whispers, and adequate staffing levels are in place this showcase hospital will remain nothing more than a Potemkin’s Village. For the benefit of Mr Hancock, a Potemkin Village is defined as follows:

A pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition. Prince Potemkin, favourite of Catherine II of Russia, allegedly had villages of cardboard constructed for her visits round the country so she would not see the reality behind the facade.

Where were you Mr Hancock the other night when you allegedly did a night shift? A real ward, on an average night in an over-stretched under-resourced hospital despite its glitzy facade, or on the Potemkin Ward where it looks all shiny but in reality, is a flat-pack illusion hastily put together for the occasion by the PR department?

Time will tell….

Hidden truths, unspoken lies.

Last week the report into the needless deaths at Gosport Memorial Hospital was published. It revealed that at least 450 lives of patients admitted to this hospital were shortened ie in Plain English, people died, due to inappropriate prescribing of heavy-duty opiates. In a hard-hitting foreword to the report, the Chair of the Independent Inquiry the Rt Reverend James Jones uses terms sadly very familiar to harmed patients and families, and to those of us deemed “whistleblowers”, “troublemakers” and “vexatious complainers”. These include “obfuscation”, “closing of ranks”, “betrayal”, “powerless”, “anger”, and “frustration”. I have not experienced direct harm in the same way as these families, but being of the “speak truth to power” type, I am painfully aware of these terms.

What has come out has left me with a deeply unsettling feeling of deja vu and an equally intense foreboding for the future.

I have a reputation for a clearly reckless tendency to say when the Emperor is in a state of undress, and have not hesitated to do so in my sometimes life-draining experience of working as an “outsider inside”. I have done so for years within the NHS and other healthcare organisations such as the Kings Fund who, despite being nominally “independent”, in fact tend to mirror exactly the culture about which they claim to be “thinktanking”. Perhaps therefore it is no surprise that I am burnt out, worn out and only starting to emerge over the side of the rusty skip onto which I have been chucked.

It came as something of a surprise therefore to be approached by two radio stations for my views on Gosport. I did not relish this and had to give some thought as to whether to agree. In the end, I decided that those of us who feel able to speak out, must use every opportunity to get our points across. As I am not directly affected by the outrage at Gosport, it is not easy to dismiss me as “angry brigade” which is what I know happened to the families raising concerns. I have seen this happen time and time again. People are unheard. People’s anger and frustration builds up, becomes embedded and in the absence of an outlet, can boil over leaving the person unable to trust anyone in authority at all. This plays right into the hands of those in the system as it becomes much easier to negate and shove in the “difficult patient/carer” box. And so the merry-go-round spins on…

And so I found myself being interviewed by Radio Scotland and by Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio with which I had not been familiar. Julia HB was all too familiar. It was going to be a challenge, as our views on most things are at polar opposites.

I think I managed to get over my views but we were of course limited by time constraints so I decided it merited a blog. This is a complex issue that goes back decades and is about deeply ingrained cultural norms, attitudes and group-think. I will attempt to unravel my spaghetti-headed thoughts on the whole thing:

I am shocked at the scale of what the inquiry unearthed but sadly, not surprised. Both through being a long-term patient, and until I became ill again with work-related stress, a consultant to healthcare organisations, I have gained a wide perspective of the culture of the NHS. Despite the rhetoric, it remains a very defensive culture and I believe this defensiveness is due in no small part, to fear.

People genuinely are afraid to speak out and they are right to be, as those who blow the whistle often face dire consequences. Also in a target-driven, highly pressured culture where there is significant bullying in places, it has been demonstrated that even the most compassionate people get cut off from their own values. Mid Staffs was a case in point. Families who have experienced avoidable harm, in my experience, do not want revenge or massive lawsuits and compensation, they want accountability and the assurance that this will not happen to any other family in future. These families are a source of real insight into what needs to change and can be a huge part of the solution if allowed to be. Trouble is, they tend to be seen as a threat and stonewalled. This fundamentally has to change.

I have over the years experienced excellent care delivered by dedicated staff often doing so under extremely difficult circumstances. I do not wish to be seen as attacking the NHS. In fact I am devoted to the principles on which the NHS is founded. It “belongs to the people”. National NHS organisations hold it, ostensibly, in trust for us, the citizens. It is essential therefore that they hear us and work with us, and that means when things are going well, and crucially, when they are not.

It is the latter part of this that causes problems of course.

The culture of defensiveness – the taking to the bunkers in times of crisis, the unwillingness to “wash dirty linen” in public – goes back way before even the twenty years since concerns started to be expressed regarding Gosport.

In 1959, psychoanalyst Isabel Menzies-Lyth published a study of systems in hospitals describing the culture there as a defence mechanism against the anxieties raised by caring for people in life and death situations. The study looked at the behaviour of nurses on a highly pressurised teaching ward. There is much in this study of relevance to the debate still ongoing about NHS culture. Menzies-Lyth found that:

1. Efforts were made to create a distance between nurses and the patients. Instead of nurses concentrating on one or two patients they were required to do different tasks for different patients. This ensured that close relationships could not form and kept patients at a “safe” distance.

2. There was a tendency to depersonalise, categorise, and deny the existence of the patient as an individual. Beds would be made in the same way, and patients fed at the same time. Hospitals were highly controlled and regulated which offered real opportunities to hide behind procedures when faced with intensely emotional situations.

3. Staff often denied their own emotions. A “good nurse” was seen as a nurse who would not get too attached to a patient. Physical detachment achieved by the regular movement of nurses from one ward to another supported this psychological detachment.

4. Procedures and rituals were used to minimise the need to make decisions deemed too stressful and which had the potential to generate fear due to uncertainty.

5. Responsibility and accountability was deflected

6. There was a level of “purposeful obscurity” where it was not clear who was responsible or accountable for what and to whom. This enabled responsibility to be applied in general terms rather than directed at one individual.

8. Staff avoided the impact of responsibility by delegation to superiors. “Tasks,” she “were frequently forced upwards in the hierarchy so that all responsibility for their performance could be disclaimed.” Nurses tended to carry out mostly tasks well below their individual capabilities.

9. There was a tendency to avoid change. “Change,” she wrote, “is an excursion into the unknown.” Terrible consequences might follow. It was easier to hide behind “we’ve always done it this way”.

One quote from this work which resonates today given the experiences of the late Dr Kate Granger when she became a patient leading to the #HelloMyNameIs campaign is:

“By allowing for ritual task performance by depersonalising relations with the patients, by using organisational hierarchies, nurses contain their anxiety. Thus a patient becomes “the kidney in bed 14” or “the tracheotomy in ward B”. In this way, nurses limit the anxiety they would experience if each patient were to be dealt with as a full human being in need.”

This report happens to be about nursing staff. I do not wish this to seem like an attack on nurses in particular. In fact in Gosport some nurses did try to alert management as to what was going on and got nowhere. However, others have acknowledged that they turned a blind eye and one is on record as saying she had no idea why she had done so. In truth, the tendencies referred to in the Menzies-Lyth study apply to any professional group working in an under-resourced, over-pressurised hierarchy particularly one subject to constant “reform”. It is little wonder that the constantly shifting sands contributed to the culture of fear which then manifested in the sort of behaviour observed by Menzies-Lyth.

I should know.

My career before diagnosis with PTSD was in exactly such an environment. I did not work in the NHS but in a local authority. We were subjected to constant restructuring, having to apply for our own jobs, and to interference by elected politicians who created conflict as what they demanded was often not the same as what the management required. This rather chaotic environment created fertile soil for the growth of petty dictators who were lauded for “getting things done” in the sense that Mussolini got trains running on time. The impact on the human beings who were being placed under intolerable pressure to meet the targets imposed from above was glossed over. Our Chief Executive was a bully with deep insecurities particularly around those of us he deemed “intellectual” or “academic”. He had good reason for his paranoia. He was exposed (by myself and a colleague as it so happened) for having falsified all of his qualifications. That came after our trade union had exposed him as a bully and chief perpetrator of an organisation-wide culture of fear. He was not sacked. He knew where bodies were buried.

I too put up with a lot of it and indeed did turn a blind eye to unacceptable things like Councillors fiddling expenses, as I was absolutely devoted to the people in the communities overseas with whom I worked. My doctor kept begging me to leave for the sake of my physical and mental health. I could not countenance that as I believed I WAS my job. Without that identity, I simply did not exist. So I carried on. It was a disaster waiting to happen. My colleagues were killed in Belarus in a rather scandalous episode the circumstances of which I was expected to cover up. I could not do that with something of this level. I took to alcohol to create the level of dissociation required to keep going. I see this a lot in the NHS. NHS staff are well-represented in the AA meetings which I now attend.

One day, I was sitting in a management meeting. I was asked a question about one of the communities with which I was working, as I recall, in Zimbabwe. I realised that at that moment, I had NO opinion. I had become frozen. I did not care one way or the other. I knew then that something profoundly wrong had happened to my personality. I knew deep down that I cared deeply but I had become completely distanced from my own humanity. I packed up my desk that day and did not go back.

When I first heard about Mid Staffs I was horrified of course. I asked myself how on earth could staff become so detached from the values that made them go into healthcare, that they would walk past clear instances of neglect and abuse.

It was extremely uncomfortable to reflect later on, that in fact, I had gone through the same process myself. And if it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.

This is not to say that staff should not be accountable. Absolutely they must. However, we need to look at those at the top who are NOT on the front line, not subject to the consequences of their own management styles, and ultimately, paid enough to shoulder accountability. The problem is that the upper echelons of the NHS contain more than their fair share of narcissists who lack insight, empathy, and have become so detached, so convinced of their own importance, that they profoundly will not believe this song is about them, to quote Carly Simon.

There are good people at those levels too who have generally survived through being in that grey area of being neither too openly good, nor openly bad. Despite the sound-bites to the contrary which emanate from the Transformista Cult, they do not rock boats, and they do not draw too much attention to themselves either good or bad. They have drifted upwards, unfettered by too much scandal, or too much success. They KNOW very often that the unacceptable is going on, but seem unwilling or unable to do anything about it. There were some very good people from the upper ranks of the NHS on the Expert Advisory Group who endeavoured to advise Jeremy Hunt on the design of the new Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. I was a member. I received more than one message from these highly-paid individuals saying that I was the only one with the guts to express openly what they were all thinking. It reminded me of when I spoke out about the bullying in my old organisation along with a few other courageous/foolhardy types. The majority of people told us they were fully “behind us”. What they meant was a considerable way behind us, behind a wall made of bomb-proof concrete.

I was asked on Radio Scotland what I believe the solution is…not an easy ask in a ten minute interview.

Firstly, I am NOT an expert. I am an observer. The outsider/inside role with a range of healthcare organisations has however, given me a genuine “helicopter view” of the current landscape. I have given up on trying to change the mindsets of the narcissists at the top which is a waste of effort, or inject courage somehow into the veins of the good people at the top so that they start to risk saying it like it is.

I prefer to concentrate on the leaders of the future. I am given some hope when I meet with the new intakes of the NHS Graduate Scheme every year on their first day. They are very bright, their minds are open to new ideas, and they have not (yet) been got at. I like to think I am able to plant some seeds that in some maybe, just maybe, that will enable them to grow into leaders with integrity and the courage to speak truth to power, leaders who are not afraid to torpedo the boat if necessary rather than just conference-hop loudly proclaiming their radical “boat rocking” credentials but not doing anything that might disrupt the status quo.

A few years ago I worked with my first intake of Graduate Scheme trainees. I had yet to be aware that I seemed to be able to influence through the manner in which I shared my experiences as a patient. There was a very overwhelming response to what I said from the new trainees. Some came up to tell me what had motivated them to want to work in NHS management, some became tearful as they had only just realised the enormity of what they were doing and the potential to impact on the lives of ordinary people.

One trainee sent me an email during her first placement. She on her first ever night shift in A&E. She wrote:

“I just want you to know that I am remembering what you said in every patient that I see”.

This is why I choose to lay my painful experiences bare over and over again in the hope that in some small way I can make a difference. I must believe that it will. It is what makes me drag myself off the floor and somehow carry on.

The other key part of any solution will of course be a radical change in the way patients and families are perceived in the system. We are NOT the enemy. We are more than capable of understanding the reasons for errors, that human beings are fallible, and that staff are very often burnt out and drained. The tendency to retreat to the bunkers as soon as the shit heads towards the fan is doing NO-ONE any favours. I am painfully familiar now with the shut-down that happens when a failure or short-coming is exposed. Despite the fact that we would deeply respect professionals prepared to say “I got this wrong” and look at how to work different, very often the response is to batten down the hatches and we are met with a Berlin Wall of silence.

No wonder then, in a system so divided and divisive, we can be forced into Them and Us tribes. Instead we need to be able to meet in the no-mans-land between the opposing armies as genuine partners, each with a deep understanding of what it is to walk in the shoes of the other. This means that we must be present where the real power lies, at governance levels. We should not be limited to token patient story at the start of a board meeting, but as an equal member of the board itself.

Until this happens, we will continue to repeat the same mistakes. The NHS can’t afford this and neither can the citizens – the patients and families who stand to lose a great deal if, and indeed when, another Mid Staffs, another Southern Health, another Morecambe Bay, another Gosport hits the front pages.

Are you an NHS Leader hiding until it’s all over, or do you have the guts to free yourself and your subordinates from the merry-go-round?

Reflections of a Burnt Out Revolutionary

I write from my room in a mental health unit. After many years of bleeding my often harrowing experiences in the health, social care and housing services all over the walls of conference halls and training rooms I find myself depleted of resources both physical, mental, and spiritual. I feel my skin has been sandpapered off very very slowly until finally I am left with my organs barely held together with a wafer-thin membrane. I was very close to taking my life last week. I do not say this lightly.

Why did I bother to give 100% of my mind and soul to trying to improve the culture of our NHS? You may well ask. In truth, it is now twenty years since I was diagnosed with PTSD and ended up homeless and hopeless, as described in other blogs. Using my experiences in the hope that no-one else ends up there has never been a “job” for me. I have had a single-minded and utterly sincere belief in the adage that the truth shall set us free.

I was prepared to traumatise myself over and over like the proverbial boot stamping on a face forever, if one, just one, person might go on to work differently as a result of what I told them.

I fought hard against the commodification of qualities like Empathy and Compassion and the dilution and co-option of concepts in which I firmly believe, such as Patient Leadership and Co-production.

It is only now in hindsight, sitting on a ward after a serious bout of suicidal despair at being next to destitute despite all that I have given particularly to the NHS, that I realise I was commoditised and co-opted myself. In return for what I hoped would lead to a level of security ie a “real” job, I allowed NHS England to silence me to some extent, to dilute what I believe and what I have to say. That failed of course, and I now meet the consequences.

I am far from out of the woods regarding my health and the spectre of homelessness is always present. I am tired on what feels like a cellular level, let down and heartbroken.

For this reason, I have decided to blog my thoughts on these issues now. I am not sure whether I will get through this particularly dark patch and there are things I do not wish left unsaid..

There are words galore on the subject of involving patients/families/citizens. We are an “untapped resource”. There is a “power shift”. We are being “put” at the centre.

Simon Stevens, at the time of writing Head of NHS England, wrote this in the Five Year Forward View:

“More broadly, we need to engage with communities and citizens in new ways, involving them directly in decisions about the future of health and care services”.

“None of these initiatives and commitments by themselves will be the difference between success and failure over the next five years. But collectively and cumulatively they and others like them will help shift power to patients and citizens, strengthen communities, improve health and wellbeing, and—as a by-product—help moderate rising demands on the NHS”.

Fine words, but is this revolutionary, new or even at all meaningful?

Discussion on the changing relationship between patients and the health and care system has been going on since before I was born. In 1964 journalist Gerda Cohen wrote in What’s Wrong with Hospitals “patients are becoming impatient of being treated like chipped flowerpots in for repair”.

Even more tellingly, she wrote extensively in this book, about her observations of a psychiatric ward. In those days of course long-term, if not permanent, admissions were the norm. I very often use this quote from the book in my presentations:

“Self government by the patients must involve pretence because as soon as they encroach on real power, they are brought up short”.

Again, remember this was in 1964 and my feeling is apart from in some isolated cases, this remains true today.

At the time Cohen was making her observations known and for some considerable time afterwards the Medical Model prevailed and to a large extent still does albeit with a veneer that might suggest otherwise. In the Medical Model, the healthcare professional is the expert in control and the patient is there to be ‘fixed’ like that broken flowerpot. Interactions tend to be one way with the health care professional telling us what needs to be done. The focus is on diagnostic labels and finding a box in which to slot the “problem”.

So many of us have more than one health issue going on at once funnily enough. Right now for example, an extended period of extreme work-related stress has led to depression, anxiety, a recurrence of my childhood epilepsy with grand mal seizures, chronic back and leg pain and the discovery while all of this was being investigated of a large growth in my uterus. I am unable to work and so poverty and sheer terror at the possibility of being unable to sustain myself and my cat has further added to the mental health symptoms. I am at separate clinics for each of these issues. I found out that the Pain Clinic was unable, on discovering the growth, to refer me directly to Gynaecology in the same hospital but it all had to go through my GP. The GP surgery could not refer me without seeing me. I was however by this time an inpatient in hospital in another part of town due to bed shortages in my own area. I have had to wait to be transferred back to my Borough, feel well enough to go to the GP surgery in order to set in motion the referral back to the same hospital. That process when I eventually dragged myself to the GP, took roughly two minutes. I was also advised that the Pain Management clinic had no ability to liaise directly with my mental health team. Surely the two issues are linked and impact on one another?

Don’t talk to me about “integrated” or “coordinated” care. These are fine words once again, but the reality of my current experience is very different. Each symptom is treated individually by different healthcare professionals working in separate silos with little or no collaboration with those in other departments.

Who has the genuine “helicopter view” over this fragmented, landmine-strewn landscape? The patients and their families of course. We have to find ways to negotiate our way through the maze when we are often at our most vulnerable. We patients know to our cost that this narrow, fragmented approach is at best frustrating, at worst actively damaging. Many never make it out of the maze. I sense their spirits are still trapped there, desperately trying to find the way to the centre or to the exit.

And despite all our efforts, those of us passionate or mad enough to push for real change for no personal reward, largely remain recipients of “care” rather than truly equal partners.

This is certainly true in Mental Health. My current experience involves being ignored, negated and not even worthy of being asked directly what my name is. Despite standing right next to a nurse, she leaned across to a colleague, stabbed her pen in my direction and said “what is HER name?”. I already feel like an utter failure for ending up here again.. This sort of thing may seem minor but makes me feel subhuman. It feels like a different planet to the world I occupied when I had a contract with NHS Horizons when we blithered endlessly about rocking boats, being pirates, not following rules etc ad nauseum. Let me take you by the hand, Chief Transformation Officer, and I will lead you to the front line of an acute mental health ward….

Patients have not taken this paternalistic attitude lying down. Already in the 1960s, at individual and collective levels, patients were starting to demand more control over their own treatment and have a genuine influence in the development of the services which they used. The first patient groups were forming and the notion of the patient as something other than a passive recipient of care began to emerge.

Largely this development seemed to have been welcomed but with some trepidation. In a debate on “Hospital and Patient Welfare” in the House of Commons in 1964, the MP for Abertillery the Rt Hon Rev Llewellyn Williams despite declaring himself suspicious of the new patient organisations as a potential refuge for “chronic bellyachers”, he does however go on to state:

“What concerns me is the question of human relationships. This is the nub of the matter. In the post-war period we have witnessed incredible medical technological advances. Surgical skill seems to go from one new wonderful discovery to greater discovery still. We have discovered drugs which are indeed miracle-working. One would wish that there were a comparable advance in human relationships”

Policy since then has gradually seen the reframing at least in terms of rhetoric of the role of the relationship between the patient and the wider healthcare system – from the NHS and Community Care Act of 1990 where the formal requirement to engage and consult was first established to more recent Policy such as the Berwick Review which recommended that:

“Patients and their carers should be present, powerful and involved at all levels of healthcare organisations from wards to the boards of Trusts”.

Once again, fine words indeed…and there’s an endless stream of them it would seem.

Here’s an example from Think Tank Land. In its 2014 paper on Collective Leadership for example, the Kings Fund recommends:

“Organisations such as the centre for Patient Leadership also stress the importance of seeing patient leaders as a resource for change in health and social care organisations. Much like multidisciplinary team-working, collective leadership with patients would require a redistribution of power and decision-making along with a shift in thinking about who is included in the collective leadership community”.

All well and good, but having been an Associate at the Kings Fund, my observation is that behind the glossy facade there festers a culture that is as hierarchical, and toxic as the worst parts of the NHS. There IS no “collective leadership community” there. This is a nice soundbite to describe a fantasy world.

Formal policy leaves us in no doubt that we are “putting the patient at the centre”. This statement in itself is riddled with power imbalance. “We” ie the professionals, on “our” ie the professionals’, terms, will “put” the patient at the centre. When I hear that, I see myself as a pawn being placed on a chess board by some giant in a suit. I am never the Queen, just the pawn.

Traditional Patient and Public Involvement, still largely based on collection of data and feedback, and at best having a token pawn or two on a Committee, more often than not, stops short of sharing power at strategic levels. Advances in digital technology and Social Media have already changed fundamentally the nature of how we patients interact with the health and care system and outdated systems for formal Patient and Public Involvement are falling more and more behind the pace of change.

As it states in the Five Year Forward View:

“We have not fully harnessed the renewable energy represented by patients and communities”.

There are yet more fine words which do not stand up to close scrutiny. The energy of patients and carers is not infinitely renewable. We are a finite resource that that risks depletion through ineffective, wasteful and tokenistic use. Simply repeating declarations that we need to involve patients and carers in new ways with no indication of how this is to happen, in a glossy policy document or declared loudly from the platform of a glitzy conference, is not enough. I have waited for real action in this for years now. My head is bashed out of shape from its frequent collisions with brick walls. I am not sure I wish to continue to water dead flowers.

The words of the Reverend Llewellyn Williams from 1964 ring equally true today with the added urgency from the NHS increasingly struggling to do more with a great deal less. Relationships remain at the heart of the matter, and the key to fostering sustainable working relationships is collaborative and partnership working in which power is genuinely shared at all levels including and in indeed, in particular, at Board level where the strategic decisions are made.

But where are we at Board level? By that, I mean having equal say in decisions, not just a “patient story” as the after lunch “inspirational” slot to wake everyone up after too much corporate buffet.

There is a smattering of Patient Director posts pioneered by courageous trailblazers like David Gilbert, but that is about it in terms of having an equal say in decisions at the most senior levels. This is a wasted opportunity. It limits vision.

Why do they fear our presence at these levels? Is it that they themselves have Imposter Syndrome? Is it simply that they have fought tooth and nail with much fur flying to get hold of power and are mighty unwilling to cede any of it especially God forbid, to a patient?

One Trust clearly fears patients to the extent that their CEO had the bright idea of having a red chair in the Board Room to remind people of the importance of “the patient”. These invisible patients are ideal. They are guaranteed not to cause trouble or ask any awkward questions. It struck me there may be a market for flatpack patients to cover all engagement needs. There could be supplements for the so-called “hard to reach” and a Premium service that would also take into account the need for diversity.

Where does the much misunderstood term “Co-production” fit into this? Co-production is often considered a synonym for patient/service user involvement. The reason for this is that the system tends to co-opt and dilute more radical concepts in order perhaps to be able to slot them into existing structures which can SOUND radical but in fact be rendered “safe”, and less challenging than the business of actually transforming existing structures and systems.

In The Challenge of Co-production, the New Economics Foundation defines it as follows:

“Co-production means delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change”

The key words are “equal” “reciprocal” and “agents of change”. It is not a synonym for public engagement, service user/patient involvement or consultation. It is not just allowing people a say in decisions about themselves individually or collectively, and above all it is not something which retains power in the hands of professionals with the patient or service user brought in at a later stage. Do you believe you are “doing” co-production? If so can you honestly say that it sits on the two way street of reciprocity, that there is true equality, and the patients/carers/citizens involved are truly able to effect change on their terms?

The term Co-production was first coined by Nobel Prize laureate Elinor Ostrom at Indiana University. The key finding in her work in the criminal justice system in Chicago was that public services were shown to work best when designed and run by a combination of professional expertise and community insight. Ostrom’s work divides participation into individual and collective levels. This is very relevant to health care. We can participate as individuals in terms of how we reclaiming power over our own health and in sharing decisions with professionals, but we can also link up with others either with similar issues or set of values to participate on a wider level in order to create the social movement that is mentioned in the Five Year Forward view.

Co-production was taken further by Professor Edgar Cahn, a US civil rights lawyer and speechwriter for Robert Kennedy, who suffered a massive coronary at 45. Time spent pondering in his hospital bed upon the resulting apparent loss of self and achievements before he was ill. He used this time well as he went on to found the Time Banking movement – the practical means whereby those declared useless by society for whatever reason are now valued for their assets, skills and life experience.

I read his seminal work “No More Throwaway People” and it immediately resonated, particularly regarding the feeling that his heart attack seemed to rob him of more than just his health.

I have long observed that the power-holders can far more readily accept the idea of patients as individuals “taking responsibility” for their own health wrapped up in the pretty gift wrap of “self-management” but not quite so keen on the idea of collective influence, of strength in numbers, of a genuine social movement that is as social movements should be – inspired, mobilised, developed and led by the citizens themselves. Social Movements are just “FAB” as long as they are run by the officially endorsed Tranformistas, bureaucratised and stripped of any energy, fire and challenge which might just run the risk of the Bastille actually being stormed.

Cahn describes himself as a Hellraiser, and as such co-production has a major hellraising element. He described me as a Hellraiser when I was lucky enough to meet him. I take this to mean the definition of an Activist by Eve Ensler.

We are out there, both inside and outside the NHS. Despite its claims to the contrary the NHS remains firmly based on Command and Control. The culture I have noted from my time working within national NHS bodies, is the antithesis of that advocated by Ensler, Cahn and countless others. There is a deep-seated fear of genuine activism that might just shake up the status quo and every effort is made to create pseudo-activists by such initiatives as the School for Healthcare Radicals. Real radicals do not need to be taught. Real radicals do not need a badge to proclaim themselves rebels. Real radicals who really do rock boats in their drive to challenge injustice and “make it better” run the risk of ending up like me – burnt out, chewed up and thrown on a corporate slagheap.

I will conclude this reflective piece with the words of Edgar Cahn, a man who would run a mile from wearing an “I am a radical” badge. His actions speak louder than empty words.

“We will be unable to create the core economy of the future so long as we live in a bifurcated world where all social problems are relegated either to paid professionals or to volunteers whose role is typically restricted to functioning as free labour within the silos of the non-profit world.

It will take massive labour of all kinds by all to build the core economy of the future – an economy based on relationships and mutuality, on trust and engagement, on speaking and listening and caring – and above all on authentic respect. We will not get there simply by expanding an entitlement system that apportions public benefits based on negatives and deficiencies: what one lacks, what disability one has, what misfortune one has suffered….Finally, because time banking and co-production grow out of my life and work in the civil rights movement, I have to add that hell-raising is a critical part of co-production and of the labour that it entails and must value. Those with wealth, power, authority and credentials hold those assets as stewards for those who came before and in trust for those yet unborn.”

As for me. Was it worth it? Right now, I just do not know the answer….

I conclude this blog with a quote from the Royal College of Nursing:

‘Strike action is a last resort. But it can be a powerful tool for change. Unfairly low pay in our profession is driving chronic understaffing. It puts patients at risk and leaves nursing staff overworked, underpaid and undervalued.’

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#FairPayForNursing

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I propose:

That more training is carried out in de-escalation techniques.

That wards are adequately staffed by qualified permanent staff rather than seemingly random Bank Staff

That a specific focus be made in existing Trauma-informed training on the potential impact on women who have experienced sexual abuse from being on mixed wards. This training should be patient-led.

That it is acknowledged that having female-only areas is far from sufficient due to the need to share space for meals, queuing for medicine, seeing doctors etc.

That practical steps are taken to ensure dignity eg vital signs and bag searches take place in private, and these measures be brought in without delay.

That a real commitment be made to eradicate mixed sex wards altogether.

For those wishing to make a start, please consider signing this petition started by Rivkah Grant @Rivkah_g after her own horrific experiences on mixed wards:

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“We will be unable to create the core economy of the future so long as we live in a bifurcated world where all social problems are relegated either to paid professionals or to volunteers whose role is typically restricted to functioning as free labour within the silos of the non-profit world.

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