Did anyone watch the panorama documentary about the psych hospital and wasn't shocked?

[missbipolar]

As someone who's had several psych admissions, the panorama doc didn't shock me. When I was one of the wards one of the support staff told me if I really wanted to die DESCRIPTION OF SUICIDE METHODS WITHDRAWN BY MNHQ we used to hear the night staff bitching about patients, checks often weren't preformed correctly- I was 5 minute checks for awhile and on multiple occasions wasn't checked for 45mins to an hour. Patients get locked out of their rooms as its "easier" for staff to deal with but this can sometimes be for over 24 hours and there's not really any place for them to sleep outside of the room. And then when you get discharged in alot of cases there's almost zero follow up for a while which means people end up bouncing back in. Rooms where frequently stripped and it took could weeks for people to get their stuff back, with some often wearing the same clothes for several days.

Obviously what happened at the hospital on panorama was dangerous and they absolutely deserve to be shut down but did anyone else not actually find it shocking?

POST EDITED BT MNHQ

I started watching this last night and need to finish it, but bloody hell! It shocked me, but I have no personal experience of psych wards. What a fucking awful place! I'm amazed if anyone gets better in such a toxic, cruel, unprofessional, uncaring place. It should be shut down and all the staff fired.

I'm sorry you experienced that @missbipolar

Honestly from that ward I was close to about 10 people- 6 of us have had other admissions at other wards, 2 have successfully taken their own lives and the other 2 ended up in supported living within 3-4 months. They aren't really designed to get you well, just get you to a slightly better place then when you went in. But its definitely not an environment where you get better most of the time, it often just adds to your trauma.

I read the article about the young woman constantly put into isolation. Also did not shock me at all.

I was horrified, but not shocked. I’m sure this kind of awful treatment of human beings goes in in many, many settings when the staff don’t know they’re being observed. Same with the other exposés there have been about elderly and special needs care homes. They are not going to be one-off rogue establishments. Despite there being, I’m sure, many care workers, health assistants and nurses who will have been equally horrified, and who themselves are beyond reproach, the fact remains that most of these establishments rely on people not suited to the work, to make up the numbers, because they are so understaffed. It only takes a few like that for the culture to become toxic.

Sorry but I’ve reported this post as you’ve detailed two methods of suicide. Can you take this down?

It only takes a few like that for the culture to become toxic.

I always despair when lovely, new modern units are built, lots of thought put into layout and rooms etc. But then the same staff. It is often culture change that is needed more than anything.

And I didn't see the documentary, but no, I wouldn't be surprised or shocked.

I work closely with an inpatient mental health unit (on a corporate level not clinical) and I would be absolutely shocked if this sort of thing happens regularly on our unit. I work closely with the clinical staff and I just cannot imagine it at all, I will be interested to discuss this programme with them once i have watched it to find out their thoughts. There definitely have been instances of bad practice of course, especially with discharges but not that often as obviously there are big investigations around them.

Mental health services are very different to what they used to be and I am not convinced in any way this has improved them at all, more community based services IMO has just meant that the people admitted are much more severe. There used to be many more inpatient rehab services, plus other lower secure units which meant people weren't just discharged straight from a relatively high intensity unit back home.

I haven't seen it yet, but read alot about it and seen lots on twitter.

Not shocked. Most psych wards are the same.

I've worked on many and my brother has been a resident a few times. They are horrible places in the main. We've come a long way from what they were like 50 years ago, but have a very very long way to go. They need an overhaul - all of them

I have posted on the thread in telly addicts I used to work for the same trust and had a placement at the Edenfield many years ago as a student nurse, it's absolutely shocking, police are involved so they can't just sweep it under the carpet, it needs fully investigating

I had a psych nurse advise me that "suicide is a cowards way out" after an overdose. I complained. They covered him and he is still part of the local CMHT.
No point is there even trying to get any quality of help ifbyou know that this is an attitude held by staff and that their management don't really mind

Morning all - we've had a few reports about this thread.

OP, we totally understand why you wanted to write this post. However, we're afraid that we don't allow folk to describe methods of suicide. Rather than deleting the entire thread, as we very often do, we have removed these details from your first post in order for you to continue discussing the documentary with other MNers.

Also, we hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources.

You can also go to the Samaritans website, or email them on [email protected] and may find our Domestic Violence information helpful.

Thanks all.

I was not surprised, but I was very very sad.

The unprofessional chavvy staff were a real heartsink. I felt sorry for them as well as the patients. Where is their self-respect and desire to do a good job? What pointless lives they lead deliberately going out of their way to do a bad job.

Blame also needs to lie with those who employed them in the first place and who were responsible for monitoring them. But - if you pay peanuts.........
And I do understand the staffing crisis. They finish up taking whoever they can get.

Our mental health services are pathetic in every way.

I am on the list for CBT because of PTSD - there is a waiting list of nearly a year.

I haven't watched it, to protect me!
I think I've been one of the lucky ones. I was on a psych ward in the 90's & the staff were wonderful (as were the other patients.) Lovely bright wards, too.
I've also had brilliant nurses who came out to visit.
The only thing I would say is that @missbipolar is right re an emergency - everyone jumps into action & then they all withdraw again - makes you feel like you're worthless.
I'm sure that hasn't changed or has got even worse in the years since, as MH services are always underfunded.

There were both qualified and un qualified staff featured ,the qualified staff should be leading by example, clearly they were not ,I also find it hard t9 believe that managers didn't know ,there were major problems across the unit.

It really shocked me and I’m an RMN with more than 20 years practise😥

Now a ward manager, I hold management entirely responsible for allowing this toxic culture to develop and continue. It’s a disgrace.

I’m truly sorry for anyone who has experienced I’ll treatment in hospital but it really isn’t the norm thankfully.

I was enraged by it, but not altogether shocked, I'm afraid. Since Winterbourne View, I've realised that toxic cultures can easily become normalised in these sort of closed environments.

I used to have to see clients in locked wards and secure forensic psych units from time to time. I can't imagine anything like that happening in any of the places I've been to, but it really made me wonder if this sort of abuse is going on in other units.

When people are deprived of their liberty they become very vulnerable.

In all the years I worked in mental health ,I will say that not everyone is cut out for the job and some people do get a power kick having authority over others,but I have never seen behaviour by whole teams like was shown ,something has gone very ,wrong for staff to think it's acceptable to behave as they did

I'm not shocked but saddened. I have experienced a secure mental health ward in the 90s that had its struggles but provided much better care and opportunities for patients.

Secure mental health can be more about containment than treatment. One thing I was shocked at was how long people had been there. If treatment is running into years then a new environment and plan is needed.

The fact that staff were leaving and that they couldn't recruit means that many nurses and support staff were not okay with what was going on and refused to participate - but this leaves behind those that were.

Panorama were called in by whistle-blowers - I would imagine these were staff that had left and wanted to make sure it was dealt with. They may have put themselves into worse employment situations to do this and I hope they can now feel that this situation is going to be dealt with.

Some of it is down to poor management - the newly qualified nurse should not have been managing the ward. She needed supervision and guidance from someone who was not part of the toxic culture - but that clearly wasn't happening. She had absorbed the bullying and unprofessional culture and now seemed to see it as normal, which means she would continue to reinforce this pattern with any students/ new support staff.

I'm not sure they are going to be able to keep that unit going once they have got rid of all the problematic staff. They might have to rotate staff from other areas, which might be an idea in the future so that individual staff can be prevented from their clique like group dynamics.

I did laugh at the 'top' Pyschiatrist/ mental health nurse going 'that shouldn't be happened, that's not protocol' - no shit Sherlock.

I didn't see the documentary hut I've read the news articles.

Unfortunately no it doesn't surprise me that people often behave unimaginably cruely when put in a position of power over vulnerable people.

I don't know what they will do but its huge unit is has 11 wards ,the trust has issues retaining staff anyway ,newly qualified nurses do get a preceptorship and they are supposed to be signed off from it but I guess how good that is,will be variable ,I worked in a different part of the trust ,but itcwasent unusual for trained staff to work long days ie 12 hrs as the only qualified nurse ,it was very difficult to take a break..

I haven't watched it but I've seen the reports. It doesn't surprise me one bit. I've dealt with a few people in MH who are utter wankers who shouldn't be looking after people.

No, I didn't find it shocking - it's pretty much how I have been treated in A and E multiple times so really not surprised it happens in a psych ward.

To be honest the entire psychiatric (which ever polarised model you look at world) is fucked because it is so divided. You have people shouting out about how awful the abuse is, yet at the same time they are asking vulnerable people to be involved with research that's not been through any ethics committees, then that research is being published, and used to inform services - the whole situation is absolutely fucking shit and no one seems to realise that it's a lack of ethics that are the very cause of abuse. NHS services don't look into what research they are using to inform their services (it's usually the "good patients" who actively exclude those who have different views).

I am so done with it all, there are so many trauma informed services going down the same path as GIDS purely because of stuff like this - and whilst I wouldn't say i have been abused in these services, they certainly stopped being helpful a long time ago (and are detrimental now).

Everywhere has problems retaining staff because who the hell in their right mind wants to work in a profession that spends the entire time arguing over which side is right or wrong, not just quietly but publicly and to the detriment of patients as well.

They then shout its because services are poorly funded (which they are) but they would certainly be a lot better funded if staff actually worked together and forged a way forwards rather than constantly slinging shit at each other and basing their work on shitty research done my unorthodox "charitable" bodies.

No, not shocked, particularly about the young woman in isolation - we've known this sort of thing was going on for years due to parents and relatives campaigning. Hopefully the Panorama documentary will embarrass some people sufficiently that conditions improve.

Saddened, not surprised.
Underfunded and understaffed - Under paid and under trained. Just like everywhere else.

The above is not going to result in good working practices. When combined in a healthcare setting with vulnerable people it's completely disastrous.