Prestwich Hospital Documentary

[Runningnewbie]

Did anyone watch it this evening? It was awful, I work in mental health and couldn’t believe so many staff could behave like that!

Just awful 😥why would you treat someone so terribly when unwell? heartbreaking to watch.

whilst the HCA,s and junior staff nurses have acted appallingly, where have they learnt this from?

I don’t think they’ve ‘learnt it’ from anyone. People like that are fundamentally unsuited to caring for others. No empathy, no conscience, no moral compass. The sad thing is it’s so easy for them to end up in ‘caring’ roles because establishments of the kind which are regularly exposed in these documentaries are dependant on people like that to make up staff numbers. And people like that know that care homes etc. are desperate for staff and evidently don’t do much screening as to suitability.

Management are culpable inasmuch as they should be running a tighter ship, doing spot checks, leading and directing staff and having much more of a presence, rather than hiding behind admin., but I doubt this kind of behaviour would be condoned by management? I don’t suppose for a moment that this kind of thing goes on when staff think they’re being observed.

The behaviour was so normalised though that surely management must have been aware?

They must have been ,even the clip of the staff nurse being asleep in the grounds in full view of everyone was incredibly unprofessional, even if she was in her break she should have gone somewhere out of view of everyone

The sleeping thing was just so chavvy

Endenfeild Hayswater.
Firstly I worked as a support worker for 2 half years on the eard. Thier were some good staff. A lot inexperinced staff. Ie Nurses ect. Thier was elment of mob culture of family friends whi worked thier.

Regarding patients the staff I worked with did the best. However with little therpy interventions. Apart from brief chat from pychologist that was it.Weekly Ocup health visit. Now and again pychatrist come only to give more medcation. No supervsion poor ledership.
This does not just happen in hospitials its in care homes. Ect.

Fat lazy staff on night shift sleeping. Only intrested in money.
No compassion No care.
Whole mental health service. Needs be addresed.

Disgusting especially pinching , putting someone on in restraint for a depot then verbally abusing them. What a disgusting staff team and culture. The HCA tickling male patients then going into a room with them in a medium secure hospital was especially stupid .

Some aspects I didn't think were explained enough , the only step up from a MSU is a High Secure which is Rampton/Broadmoor and Ashworth. The patients might not have a criminal record but they would have extensively assaulted other staff/service users in previous placements and not pressed charges. People don't get put in a MSU for no reason as was portrayed by the programme.

It's a poor toxic culture , I don't understand if the staff hate it so much leave. If I felt I was losing compassion I would quit rather than do that . Utterly disgusting I would never work in a female MSU I just know I'm not cut out for it.

From top to bottom I never worked st the Edenfield ( apart from as a placement 20+years ago as a student nurse) but I worked in a different part of GMW /GMMH there is an awful lot wring with the trust which nobody seems willing to address.

People don't get put into medium-secure for no reason... but often their lashing out and aggressive behaviour has been because of a history of completely inappropriate placements (triggering things like sensory overload and fight or flight responses), or placements where staff turnover has meant that good practice which WAS supporting them has fallen by the wayside (things like AAC devices left unused over time) - or just absolute clashes of personality between residents. Or things like pain that they struggle to communicate. Get lots of the provision right and the behaviour diminishes to manageable levels again.

Unfortunately social care in this country is beyond falling apart and is at the level of being patched up with layer on layer of duct tape initiatives and "work in care" advertising campaigns - so people end up in inappropriate placements or with families struggling to support their needs and then placements break down and people end up in crisis before help steps in - by which time they're tagged with the "aggressive service user" stigma and things can snowball so quickly. Once they've got that label - their behaviour gets viewed in a whole different light, so getting a bit loud and discontent because tea is 5 mins late becomes "aggression" and then things snowball out of control.

And then add in Covid - practically every referral I have on caseload at the moment has the words "behaviour has escalated significantly since the lockdowns" in it. If you're struggling anyway and not quite fitting in floundering on the edges of society - and then you lose all the structure and routine you have in your life that helps you manage how anxious you feel because of not quite clicking with society... then you're going to struggle - and if you're struggling - a Teams call isn't going to be the help you need really is it?!

Can you tell I spend a LOT of my days unpicking the threads which cause people to behave in ways that would be pushing them toward various levels of forensic in-patient stays? I find it absolutely fascinating - to see case notes of very very "challenging individuals" and then unpick it and work on one factor at a time that's causing them to behave in that way and how quickly you can achieve change if you actually sit and engage with the service users and help them communicate what's going on in their heads. I think you need a certain personality to enjoy working with this type of client group (intellectual disabilities and autism are my particular interests) - but damn it is soooo rewarding and you can accomplish so much if you have that! (I'm off to one of the national high-secure hospitals to work at one point next year and can't wait for that as well as an opportunity for me to learn more).

It's frightening, I'm now the parent of a severely autistic child who is non verbal he can't tell anyone, If he's being treated badly, physically abused etc ,because I used to work for the trust, I have been following this since the story broke ,quite a few ex patients have commented on news articles saying they did speak out but were just not believed because of their mental illness honestly I really don't know ,what the outcome of this will be.

I work in Autism and LD so I definitely understand this. I'm currently in an A&T and I love it , it's really well staffed and a lovely culture. I'm finding higher functioning females in particular are being placed in generic MH wards/ PD wards instead of specialist wards which aren't suitable. Part of me worries about the transforming care agenda as specialist provision might start getting shut down.

There's an undercover Dispatches on Monday, Essex hospital

Thanks for that - I don't tend to notice stuff coming up on the TV schedules much.

Everyone in our trust that I've come across is absolutely fucking livid on behalf of the service users who were treated like that and would quite like to get their hands on the staff involved.

We need to really fix how society views those with mental health issues and those with learning disabilities (I'm putting them together just because we saw similar behaviour from staff in ID before with Winterbourne View, Whorlton Hall etc) and up the status (and pay and conditions) of the staff who work with them - until we start to genuinely value people, we're going to end up with settings where this toxic culture and viewing the patients/residents as some twisted form of entertainment continues. Staff turnover also comes from this as well - in addition to unsuitable placements making things harder for all concerned... and then turnover of staff means that provision which WAS working well falls by the wayside and then behaviours that challenge escalate and it all goes absolutely to shit and people get shunted from placement to placement and end up with a breakdown and hospital admission. We try our best to stop that happening and nip it in the bud but there's not enough of us to cover our area and do as much as we would love to (I cringe at how high my community mileage is!)