MINUTES OF INPATIENT CARE FORUM

Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at CEIMH 

Present:

Maureen Smokjis, Joanne Barber, Paul Roberts (mins), Alex Davis, Adrian Fisher, Stephen Jeffreys, Gordon Parsons, Janie Greville, Tracey Holley 

Apologies:

Jean Jeffries 

Spirituality Project 

Jo talked through the project and various paperwork for the benefit of members who had missed recent meetings. She is planning to do a presentation of the project at  the August Suresearch monthly meeting. There will be a scoping day where she will look to receive qualitative feedback on the Spiritual Scale, rate the questions 1 to 3 based on ease of understanding, relevance to Spirituality and also receive further feedback on ‘what Spirituality means to you/importance of Spiritual WellBeing’ and ‘How it changes with my mood/illness’.

Jo and Ann Davis is planning a formal presentation to follow to a wider audience at CEIMH. Professor Chris Cook ( part MD, Psychiatrist, Anglican priest and Researcher!) of Durham will help Jo prepare the renewed grant application later in the year without remuneration. Service users in Durham and Birmingham will be involved in the project if the bid is successful. The other good news is that Maddie, administrative support for Jo, has had her contract at B&SMHFT extended for a year.

Jo will e-mail Paul to pass on updated paperwork to members of the group and bring copies of the Spirituality Training Handbook designed for B&SMHFT staff to the next meeting. 

‘Voices from the Asylum’ 

Maureen also revisited this Heritage Lottery bid project to inform absent members. A preliminary application will go in soon. Ann Davis has suggested Maureen approaches Birmingham MIND for the financial management of the project if the bid is successful as a a constituted  organisation with a bank account. So the bid will be put in under the IPCF name in partnership with the University of Birmingham and Birmingham MIND.

Alex referred members to a themed mental health night on BBC-4 on Monday May 17th in particular ‘History of The Madhouse’ at 9pm. 

Advocacy Project 

Alex spoke of his research, started in June 2009 and completed in December, into organisations providing statutory advocacy services to Mental Health Services in Birmingham  as a result of the the recent Acts. The research is available to view on the Suresearch website here, with an Addendum added last month, here. His main point was how fragmented, varied, uneven and almost non-existent (in the case of MH Older Adults) were the services provided. There would appear to be no parity of services not only between different client groups (Learning Disability/ Forensic MH ,Children services) but also different Trusts. Alex is keen to pursue research in other Trust areas and will seek interest from members at the Suresearch monthly meeting. 

Tidal Model Project 

At Tracey’s request there was an inquest into the failure of B&SMHFT to implement the Tidal Model in anything but a patchy way within the Trust. However  its values were incorporated into the Integrative Care Record. One view was that Professor Barkers approach was impractical as far  too time consuming to be realistically practised. The filmed interview of IPCF members in discussion is used in training and it is still available on the CEIMH website to view. 

IAPPT 

There was a brief discussion of the availability of talking therapies since the introduction of the IAPPT scheme. Based at GP surgeries the idea is for patients suffering from lesser illnesses like anxiety and depression in its early stages to

be able to access a short course of CBT based therapy and thus avoid medication and falling possibly into Secondary

services. Maureen mentioned drawbacks that training was ongoing on the job , there is no supervision in place and unlike nursing there is no registration as there is no professional body. Its availability is compromised by cutbacks in services (in Worcestershire it is still to be introduced). Another problem is the differing  welcome of GPs to IAPPT workers based at surgeries. 

Survivors Research Network Third Seminar , May 12th 

Alex reported back on yesterdays seminar ‘Using Peer Researchers to explore SU& Cares views on compulsory admission to hospital: A Northern Ireland perspective’. This qualitative ‘pilot study’  involved interviews with 6 SU& Carers . There was an interesting extra flavour to the study due to the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland. Parallels were drawn between the similar negative experiences of SU & Carers in not being listened to and respected. A similar study has been taking place linking Finland & Italy studies. Alex reminded group that Suresearch had been involved in a similar study some years ago with 16 SUs and felt another one making use of the Suresearch network would be possible. See here.

Continuity of Care: 

Stephen spoke of a City Wide Implementation Team meeting he had attended where the benefits of a Functionalist approach to Care were expressed. Members re-iterated that the splitting of services did not necessarily work to the benefit of the service user 

Date of Next Meeting: 

Thursday July 8th, 2010 at 10.30 in SR3

DAB-P (19th May 2010)