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 When I was one of the wards one of the support staff told me if I really wanted to die DESCRIPTION OF SUICIDE METHODS WITHDRAWN BY MNHQ we used to hear the night staff bitching about patients, checks often weren't preformed correctly- I was 5 minute checks for awhile and on multiple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

UNDERFUNDING DOES NOT LEAD TO ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR.

So fed up of this argument.

Schools are underfunded, do you expect your children to be abused at school?

Very true and a lot of the situations shown were totally mismanaged they might not have had to restrain that patient had the just spent a bit of time alleviating her fears about having her injection,
And when Harley said give me a minute to get to my feet they didn't they just dragged her into seclusion
Not to mention the outright pinching and slapping patients

@OhFrogOff

It's a bit different in education as someone will always be put in front of the children.

But underfunding in the NHS = fewer staff, fewer experienced staff, lower qualified staff.

This leads to

Good staff leaving understaffed unit, struggling to recruit, unit being even more understaffed, poorer quality staff being recruited. Poor care becomes tolerated.

Which leads to

Poorer practice as even more good staff empty out, followed by reasonable staff leaving only poor quality or desperate staff who haven't found a way out yet. Poor care becomes normal. Incidents of abuse are tolerated by staff.

which then leads to

Critical shortage of staff, shoestring staffing with recruitment of warm bodies. Incidents of abuse become normal.

What?

Talking about suicide isn't forbidden.

Underfunded and understaffed - Under paid and under trained.

I do agree with the above, but….
There are many, many underpaid and under-trained staff who would not behave like this. The appalling behaviours we see time and time again aren’t caused by being underpaid and under trained. They are facilitated by the apparent inability to sift out the unsuitable staff who are given access to jobs ‘caring’ for vulnerable people, because ‘staffing crisis.’

The staff we see behaving appallingly wouldn’t undergo a miraculous transformation if they were given more training or more money. They would still be scum. A staffing crisis shouldn’t be an excuse for allowing the dregs of society to be let loose on people who have no means of protecting themselves.

The very same trust keeps opening and closing ward,s at the drop of a hat and spending millions on refurbishment, and then closing the ward less then 12 months ,so they are not exactly being sensible with the funding they do get
They also redeployed me twice in 12 months between 2005 and 2006 due to cuts ,so they have had issues for years.

There is zero reason someone displays abusive behaviour apart from the fact that they are abusive.

There were countless times in the documentary where there were multiple staff involved, there are countless schools currently going through child abuse inquiries (SCAI) where multiple children were allegedly (sorry I am giving evidence soon) abused, all because people were abusive. There is no other excuse or causation for abuse other than the person is an abuser.

Every other argument just dilutes what is actually happening, complete failures of systems, DBS is simply not fit for purpose, reporting and whistleblowing is not fit for purpose, patients (as a collective rather than the minority) voices are not being heard.

I do think underfunding does come into it to some degree although the fact they're understaffed is the biggest problem. The ward I'm talking about here (I've been on 4 in the last 18 months, while the others had their issues this ward was by far the worst) didn't really have the budget for agency staff etc, so sometimes there was only 1 nurse and 4 support staff on during the day when it's supposed to have 2 nurses and 6 support staff when fully staffed. The ward manager was almost never seen often working from home, and when your work from home you don't actually get to see the issues that are going on.

ITS BECAUSE YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THE ISSUE.

It leads to bad staff, all bad staff are not abusive (some are just lazy and disinterested) but all abusive staff are bad.

I worked in front line services. It's a fucking nightmare. Lack of services and funding with statutory duties we cannot possibly fulfil due to lack of resources. I want to do my job right, I care passionately. It's draining and soul destroying. Such an environment filters out good staff and retains shit staff. If you don't care it doesn't bother you that you can't work by your values.

Even worse this encourages terrible leadership. If your job (Lead an institution/team/service were you carry out statutory duties while providing best practice care and meeting needs holistically) is impossible you are going to attract bullshitters who can blag that they can do impossible. Senior leadership are often little better than fucking grifters who exist only to provide plausible deniability to politicians.

And even if they are in the building ,they attend countless meetings so don't actually spend much time physically on the ward.

Another aspect of this is institutionalisation of staff. What struck me from the reports in Manchester was the phrase "she's the cancer of the ward and needs cutting out".

Obviously on the surface its fucking horrific but I think it speaks to something even more troubling about the way staff have a very warped view of their workplace. Too much ownership of it? I can't quite put into words what I mean.

🙄🙄🙄

ITS BECAUSE YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THE ISSUE.

You do realise I have said I have had these experiences upthread? It happened because of abusive staff, nothing to do with funding. No one else in that organisation abused me except for one person.

I think I probably have more understanding as an expert by experience of abuse by health care professionals and why it happens than you and your "frontline" experience.

A job that is draining and soul destroying (and there are many) does not lead to someone abusing people.

And for everyone commenting - it's best practice not to detail suicide methods and has always been an MNHQ policy for as long as I can remember (it's also why journalists don't detail methods).

Just look at the case going on with instagram at the moment.

Yes sorry for mentioning suicide methods- I think I'm slightly desensitised to it now and didn't stop and think. Thank you mn for removing it

Did you not read my post at all? I never said a bad job makes people abusive, not even close. I was very clear.

The reporter had probably got wind of how bad it was in there and then decided to do an undercover report on the unit.

I work in an inpatient female forensic unit and it's really well run and majority of the staff are brilliant, it's sometimes difficult to discharge the service users as they don't want to leave.

However, I have seen staff bitten , punched , kicked, spat at by service users all while trying to provide care, and they still go back to care for those same service users.

@missbipolar no worries - I don't think it's anything to be sorry for was just explaining to the people who don't understand why specific methods should not be mentioned.

What really worries me about this is there are trusts on twitter that are being discussed openly, yet they haven't been picked up.

Also, I wondered why they had a forensic psychiatrist (personality disorder background) being interviewed (actually I thought she came across well), but why not someone with expertise in autism, and, why was it a forensic person? Surely there are many other people they could have approached.

I am glad she named abuse as abuse very early on though.

All I really thought was that nothing whatsoever was learned from the Panorama program about Winterbourne View a decade ago. Maybe as a society we need to stop being shocked and appalled and actually do something about it.

It ,s a forensic unit
In fact I'm not sure why Harley the girl with autism was detained there because they said she didn't have a criminal record ,maybe there were just no other suitable places for her to go?

Staffing is an issue but safe staffing levels should always be maintained and that is very senior management that need to be held responsible for that.

I hold management entirely responsible and they need to be facing investigations and consequences.

As a ward manager who has worked on the wards as a staff nurse and charge nurse for years, I won’t work from home for that reason, you need to have eyes and ears on the ward, to ensure patient care needs are met and staff feel supported.

I’m not in today because of a sick husband before anyone asks why I’m on MN😉

People without criminal records are sent to MSU usually because they show extreme levels of violence and aggression towards staff and other patients. They can't be safely managed in other environments that's why the staff said they can't move them as no one will take them. The only level above is Rampton for females. That bit was glossed over in the documentary. I found it awful swearing calling patient names , pinching just evil. No professional boundaries or care. A toxic work culture with no leadership. If someone hates their job just leave there's loads of caring jobs out there. Personally I would never choose to work in a female MSU I know it's just not for me.

People do have things taken out of their bedrooms to manage risk. There's a high level of risk I personally don't think long term inpatient for PD does patients any good it tends to make them worse.

@LuckyLil agreed, but nothing is learnt because the same lines are wheeled out "understaffed, underfunded, under resourced"

Exactly my thoughts, and there have been other undercover investigations after Winterbourne as well.

www.channel4.com/press/news/dispatches-undercover-inside-priory

There was also one on people detained for extended periods with learning difficulties - i cannot remember the title.