Themes and Issues highlighted by the Visitors Group

Ambience

1 Patients said that the toilet located on ward 36 had broken hinges and needed repairing also other toilets within the unit were in need of repair.  

2 Patients also said that on ward 36 the automatic light within the toilet would switch off when someone was using the toilet.

DMHST Responses:

1 Matron will pick up on this issue when she is doing her ward rounds.

2 Matron will check on both these issues when she will be doing her ward rounds and will get any issues that are discovered ratified as soon as is possible.

Patients need to highlight any issues found to either a member of staff or the matron who will endeavour to put things right as soon as is possible.

 

Recreational Activities on Ward

1 Patients said not enough activities to do whilst on ward areas.

2 Patients suggested that they would like to do some form of creative writing as an activity on wards or within the Pantry areas.

DMHST Responses:

1 One of the main reasons given was due to lack of staff on the wards to supervise patients doing activivties.

2 There is a Reading group that has started up on Ward 35 which patients can make use of.

The main reason for lack of activities was due to the fact that staff was off from work because of sickness so for this reason the trust found it hard to supervise patients whilst doing activities. 

 

Recreational Activities in Jackie’s Pantry

1 Patients said not enough activities to do whilst in Jackie’s Pantry and the fact that snooker equipment was locked away and had to be asked for.

2 Patients said that the internet had not been working within Jackie’s Pantry for over a week.

3 Patients felt that they were not allowed to make use of the big screen TV located in Jackie’s Pantry, but the staff could decide when patients were allowed to use it.

DMHST Responses:

 

1 The main reason given for this issue was around lack of staff to supervise activities.

The snooker table is locked as a result of Health and Safety issues that had been bought to light by patients who had used the balls as weapons so for this reason patients need to be supervised whilst using the table. Matron also to check with staff at Jackie’s Pantry regarding access and amend if needs be.

2 The Matron was not aware of this fact and will check and get it working as soon as possible.

Patients need to tell staff if they come up against any problems with regards to equipment not working.

3 The TV is for patients use and only patients should decide when they want to use it, but only when supervised by staff as it is an expensive piece of equipment and cannot be replaced.

 

Medication

1 Medication side effects not explained in depth and in detail to patients.

DMHST Responses:

1 Each ward has a dedicated Pharmacist who will explain in detail the side effects of any medication. All wards will do a notice to this effect. The internet is available at Jackie’s Pantry to facilitate accessibility to web sites with information.

Also there are now two extra pharmacists that are helping out on the wards.

 

Clinical Care

1 Some members of the staffing team going that extra mile for patients.

2 Some service users felt that staff would spend more time filling in paper work and not enough time talking with the patients.

3 Patients felt that they were not able to talk to anybody about their problems and that they would like to set up a group amongst the patients where they could talk about what they were going through with regards to their mental health problems.

4 Patient felt that the use of restraints on older patients was not suitable  (3 staff to 1 65 year old female patient).

5 Patient was locked in seclusion then found the door unlocked after a while.

DMHST Responses:

1 Thank you for this positive comment.

2 This is an ongoing issue and hopefully the Protected Patient Time will in some ways help with patients feeling they have more input from the nursing team. Also there is a new procedure that has been introduced as a pilot in the north called EPR, which would mean that some paperwork has been taken out.

3 All patients get 1 to 1 sessions with their named nurse and issues such as this need to be discussed with patients named nurse during this time.

4 DMHST policies and procedures state that it has to be 3 members of staff when carrying out restraints on patients so that nobody gets hurt during this process.

5 Not enough details given in order to respond, but when in seclusion the door will remain locked until the patients calms down or staff feel that they have calmed enough.

 

Occupational Therapy – Gym

1 Patients felt that they would not be told about OT activities by staff and had to find out things for themselves.

DMHST Responses:

1 All patients are normally assessed for OT and their needs are addressed in the OT programme.

Staff also reminded to inform patients of OT and Gym facilities.

 

Nutrition

1 Mostly the variety of foods on offer in the menu is good and nutritious.

2 Service users liked the choice of foods that were available for them on the menu.

DMHST Responses:

1 Comments passed on to the catering department.

 

Social

 1 Service users felt that Derbyshire Mind failed to get in contact with service users after they had left messages.

2 Service users felt that Derbyshire Mind did not offer the support that they needed eg no one to answer the phones when patients rang, they would much rather have somebody to talk to rather than an answer phone message.

3 Patient was not supported by the Crisis Team or their CPN whilst they were at home so were forced to call 999 and wait for over 7 hours at the A & E unit.

4 Patients felt that Rethink services that had been on offer were good.

DMHST Responses:

1 & 2 Discussed with Derbyshire Mind, also DMHST have an Internal number for Derbyshire Mind which is 3732 and all patients should be able to contact them if needs be.

 

Environment

1 Most service users were quite happy with the environment.

2 Service users felt that they would only be allowed to wash their laundry at certain times of the day and not when they wanted to.

DMHST Responses:

2 All wards contacted and assured the matron that washing facilities are available at any time unless there is a rational behind why there is not.