September 2006

So the big headline this morning is “Mental Health services are Failing“.

Fancy that.

This time it’s the community services that are rubbish, usually Community Mental Health Services don’t get this sort of attention, safe in the knowledge that inpatient services will get all the flack, but it seems that the tide is turning.

Now I can’t pretend to know why “The watchdog (that goes tick-tick-tick Woof) rated one in 10 as excellent, with nearly half just getting a fair grade”, but I can speak about what was recently happening in my CMHT, which I would suspect falls into the 40-odd % that couldn’t even be rated as fair!

“Campaigners said the findings were concerning, and NHS bosses said there was room for improvement.”

Talk about understatement.

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As well as the (almost) regular featurette in The Gaurdian. Mentalnurse now makes a triumphant appearance on Psychminded.

Not in person though….that would be just stupid. (”Darn it!” says the managers reading this, “I thought I had him this time.”)

Article author Adam James divides blogs into three types: “insightful, distressing or plain drivel”, but doesn’t say which one Mentalnurse is……so you’ll have to make your own mind up.

EDIT: Friday, September 29th 2006 by malcolmroff. Mental informs me that he prefers to consider this blog as “insightful drivel”……..nice try Mental, but that option wasn’t up for grabs.

Hello there. As it’s my first post that’s just a polite greeting, so please don’t draw any inferences as to whether or not I watch Blue Peter. Although I must say that little Connie is rather attractive, isn’t she?

I did, sort of, indicate to Mental that I would try to be quite neutral in my posts but to be honest I can see that unravelling at the seams already. I will start, however, with a topic about which I haven’t got a strong opinion. The world of complaints.

I was sailing through my last student placement on a mixed acute ward. They had quickly recognised my potential and given me the responsibility of the obs board (if we’re not keeping people safe, what are we doing?). I was sauntering along the accommodation corridor when there was a commotion behind a bathroom door. Doris ( I’m not being patronising, I can’t remember her real name but I’m sure it had a degree of contemporary popularity ), who did not have a psychotic illness, then emerged shouting:

“You were peeping through the door at me!”
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Well it is time to go

For real life reasons, unrelated to the site, I will be taking a complete break. For at least 3 months, at which point I will review my life and see what I intend to do next.

Stepping into my glittery dancing shoes will be oldschoolbaby and malcolmroff. Who can be reached via the following mail addresses:

remove the spaces etc. Any mail that gets to me will be directed to one of them, especially the offers to buy Viagara, of which I get many.

After the fold some gushy stuff.

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Or what I did not like about working in Care Of The Elderly.
[update 11 Sep]

I have no idea what I am about to write; considering I am not always at home to the diplomacy fairy though I want to give a warning. Some of the following may not be very pleasant reading. It will be a mix of personal experience, friend of a friend tales, ancient history, conjecture, factual fictions and anything else I feel like sharing. I don’t intend to signify which I am writing. If you read something that looks like it should have officially been complained about … it was.

Anyway here goes.

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Or why I liked working with the elderly. Especially the demented elderly.

My purpose here is to offset some of the bile I will be venting later about ‘the system’; how the demented are treated as subhumans and my general ranting. People are treated differently. While it is now unpopular to judge people by skin co
lour, culture, gender, disability or other uncontrollable it still is perfectly acceptable to prejudge people based on age. People often consider me to be an empty headed flibbertigibbet because I look so young and pretty. I’ll discuss that later.

This is the upbeat post.

Hopefully.

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