(June 2021) Service Involvement meeting Agenda items
Many of you will have Service Involvement Meetings in addition to your ward community meetings (although may have struggled with them of late due to Covid) and we know they have many different names – One Voice, Patients Council etc. But if you hold these meetings and would be happy to share your agenda’s that would be much appreciated and would help with thinking about useful topics to focus these meetings.
Yes we use an agenda as best we can….It has worked really well for the structure and focus of the meetings. I go round on the day of the meeting to ask the reps what they have from their wards for the agenda then we follow it through at the meeting. We’ve only missed two meetings as we currently hold them in the sports hall because it’s nice a big so we can space out. We usually have and AOB at the end but sometimes there isn’t time so I follow things up on the wards. I’ve attached the agenda for this afternoon if that helps. Minutes from last month. E-cig update. Service User Network update. BBQ or events. Courtyard leave – female time. Real work opportunities. LGBT+ Group. AOB. Stockton Hall
Intros and ice breakers. 1 hot topic from each community meeting & 5 min problem solving to help these issues. Updates from Governance/ management team. Items to be taken to Governance. Workshop e.g. post Covid how to re-energise or SeQuIn Tool Standards, update welcome pack etc. Waterloo One Voice
We do not have any standing agenda items, in the past we have had LGBT, hate crime, bullying and least restrictive practice. However as it’s the patient’s own forum they discussed this and chose not to have standing agenda items as most of them were confidential subjects and preferred it to be an open forum. A patient did comment that having standing agenda items prompted people to look for a negative rather than a positive issue. It does follow a set meeting format with no standing agenda items at present. It has been a while since this was reviewed at the forum so maybe it’s worth us raising it at our next forum. Wathwood Patient’s Forum
We don’t really have a set agenda, we briefly summarise the minutes of the last meeting, management will discuss anything they think needs bringing up and staff and patients are given the chance to discuss anything they want to. What we sometimes do that helps is put up a blank sheet of paper with the date of the meeting and everyone can add anything they want discussing in the meeting. Amber Lodge
Attendees Apologies. Previous meetings minutes and Actions. Sharing information – Good things what are happing on the ward which are new, Things that could be Better on the ward. Voices Heard – Servicer Users, Carers, External Visitors. Best Practice/Lessons Learned. Project Feedback – Project Groups, Support plans, One page profiles. Community Meeting issues (not resolved in last 3 community meetings). Blanket Rules. Any other business. Cygnet
Welcome & Introductions. Revisit Ground Rules. Review of Overarching Peoples Council Action Plan. Feedback from [ward name]. Feedback from Advocacy Forums. Feedback from Recovery College. [Specific Items to be added as required]. Agree Actions for completion. Any other business. Cygnet Sheffield
(March 2021) Discharge Planning (Covid times)
What are other secure services doing in terms of gradual unescorted local leave to overnight for discharge planning for service users? Namely: Are they going at all? How long are they isolating for? Are they accepting lateral flow tests or PCR and does them being asymptomatic affect the isolation time? Also, what is the consensus about support bubbles whilst they are out on leave?
We are doing this exact thing right now! However, our patient tested positive for COVID-19 and as there is a 90 day “isolation free” period if you like, he hasn’t had to isolate OR swab on his return from leave. All we are saying is that if he meets up with anyone before total discharge has happened, then social distancing must be adhered to as per government guidelines. We decided as a MDT that a support bubble wouldn’t be possible as he would be spending time in his new supported accommodation, returning to The Humber Centre then potentially having “support bubble” visits from a family member. It was too much for us to manage as a service as it could get particularly complicated. Humber Centre
We have been having some similar issues, here are some solutions we have used:- We have been giving our patients unescorted hospital ground leave – for our patients we have also extended this into the woodfield community land that is at the side of our hospital grounds – although at the moment we haven’t extended this to local shops but this is under discussion as part of 2 patient’s discharge pathways. For patients who had already started having transition visits – either day visits or overnight visits we have continued with these providing the following:- both units (ours and the one they are going to) are covid free (either symptoms or positive) and for us because (DMBC insisted) the patient had a negative full test (not the lateral) prior to each overnight visit. We haven’t really thought about the support bubble other than treating our patients as living within one bubble. Not sure if this helps however i would like to see what other units are doing as well, especially as this might help support us with the 2 patients i mentioned on discharge pathways. Amber Lodge
We have followed national guidance and kept leave to exercise only. We have prioritised those that require escorted and unescorted for discharge so we do not hold a patients progress any more than Covid is doing. All patients that have leave complete a Covid awareness session Re hygiene, mask , social distancing and what to expect as well as what Covid is and national guidance. We are discharging. We ensure we take a PCR test three days prior to discharge. We then know we are sending a negative patient. Most areas like us are isolating for 7 days on admissions and PCR testing day 1 , day 3 and day 5/6 from admission. We are also working in family bubbles for leaves so patients from the same ward(family) can go on leave together but again in line with national guidance so only x2. Wathwood
(May 2021) Smartphone Access
As we come out of business continuity, we are aiming to step back up Recovery College within our service. This has previously been accessible by all three wards, with inter-ward mixing to participate in the session.
How are people delivering Recovery College at present, particularly given current restrictions in terms of social distancing, issues relating to infection control and inability to have mixed ward groups?
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Do you have a set process to assess & risk manage individual patients prior to granting access to a smartphone? For most of our wards, smartphones are only allowed on unescorted leave.
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Are patients able to have these on the ward or just on leave? Just introduced service users having their smartphones on our pre-discharge ward. All other wards, it is unescorted leave only.
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What checks do you have in place to ensure safe usage- both to protect the patient (thinking vulnerability) and against reoffending? Asked to sign a contract for safe use. If they breach, then smartphone not to be used
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What issues/difficulties have you had after introducing smartphones? Mainly the cost and service users signing up for expensive contracts that they might not be able to afford. Bretton Centre
We have individualised care plans agreed with Primary Nurse, SU and MDT then they can be used on unescorted leave. We do a teaching session or two as needed for our LD guys. Newhaven
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Do you have a set process to assess & risk manage individual patients prior to granting access to a smartphone? Smart phones can only be used on unescorted leave external to the hospital.
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Are patients able to have these on the ward or just on leave? Just on Leave
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What checks do you have in place to ensure safe usage- both to protect the patient (thinking vulnerability) and against reoffending? We run an OT course on being internet safe and how to use smart phones
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What issues/difficulties have you had after introducing smartphones? Nothing major I can remember.
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And any other advice /information you could give us about what they have done introducing smartphones. We have basic phones now available on all wards across Wathwood with MDT approval however smart phones are only allowed on unescorted leave not escorted as we want interaction whilst on escorted leave. Wathwood
Click here for information from Moorlands View about their patient mobile phone contract and policy. Moorlands View
(September 2021) Safewards
We have just done our Reducing Restrictive Practice RRP SeQuIn Tool scoring and one of the areas that it flagged up was around using methods such as Safewards to improve the wards and people’s experiences. This is not something that we have looked at in detail so far but it would be great to know if there were any specific Safewards initiatives that services have found particularly useful and would be willing to share what these were and how they have implemented them.
We have implemented some safe wards on our ward, we have a “getting to know me” board with staff profiles on – we also have a patient version – these have been particularly useful for new staff to support them with what is “safe” to talk about and give them confidence to have conversations with patient. The patient getting to know me board also helps new staff to get to know patients as well as supporting patients in “safe” conversations to have with each other – the patient board came from an idea from a patient who was new to the area. Our RRI team have also done some sessions with staff around safe wards and soft words – this was really useful initially (but probably something we need to revisit) to challenge staff in how they think and approach situations. More recently a member of our RRI team have done some sessions with our patients – although not really safe wards this has been really good for patients and has given them greater understanding of physical interventions, why staff might implement them and it has empowered the patients to discuss this with staff when completing PBS plans etc. Amber Lodge
We’ve started implementing Safewards in our service. We are in the very early stages of it and are having to make adaptations, as it is a model based on acute services and we are forensic. For example, instead of discharge messages, the service users suggested messages of hope due to the length of stay that the guys typically have. We have done this in collaboration with service users as much as possible, so we’ve had 4 coproduction meetings so far, 2 introducing Safewards and 2 discussing how we adapt the first set of interventions to the wards. The service users themselves chose the interventions they wanted to start first and we have rolled with it. I’ve found that often the interventions that staff want are different from what the service users want. It is my understanding that the model is all 10 interventions, I’m not sure on the research on specific interventions and their impact, from what I understand the measured impact has been on all the 10 interventions and not specifically just one intervention. The Safewards website has all the information and it’s free! Happy to answer any more questions on Safewards. Forest Lodge
Each Month at Waterloo we change our interactive noticeboard and choose topics with Safeward’s in mind. We try and focus on highlighting positivity, sharing ideas and creating conversation 1. ‘Unconditional positive regard’; we tackled language on this board– challenging staff to undo their negative clinical lingo and asked people to stick up quotes that sent out positivity 2. ‘Getting to Know us Rainbow’; we used the board to create interactive voting polls– we have disagreed for years on the correct colour order of the rainbow and asked people to vote! It created plenty of conversation and brought back good memories 3. ‘Colour Mindfulness’ people could take a sweet treat and a guide to mindfulness using colour as a focus to try out 4. ‘Wellbeing pledge’ if its written you are more likely to stick to it (right??) we asked people to stick up health pledges for 2020 5. Giant Advent– first to the board could reveal the days picture and message of hope (and find a chocolate coin!) 6. ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner’ helped us share our NSUA winning news and asked for people to add their own positive stories to a plate 7. Stress Bucket– this allowed us to throw in our stresses as we passed by and share coping strategies. https://www.yorkshireandhumberinvolvementnetwork.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/RRP-Bulletin-12-April-2020..pdf Waterloo Manor
Click here to access the Safewards website! Safewards
(May 2021) Smartphone access
We are currently reviewing how patients have access to smartphones and internet – supervised & unsupervised and would like to ask how are other services managing this? 1. Do you have a set process to assess & risk manage individual patients prior to granting access to a smartphone?
2. Are patients able to have these on the ward or just on leave?
3. What checks do you have in place to ensure safe usage- both to protect the patient (thinking vulnerability) and against reoffending?
4. What issues/difficulties have you had after introducing smartphones?
5. And any other advice /information you could give us about what they have done introducing smartphones.
- Do you have a set process to assess & risk manage individual patients prior to granting access to a smartphone? For most of our wards, smartphones are only allowed on unescorted leave.
- Are patients able to have these on the ward or just on leave? Just introduced service users having their smartphones on our pre-discharge ward. All other wards, it is unescorted leave only.
- What checks do you have in place to ensure safe usage- both to protect the patient (thinking vulnerability) and against reoffending? Asked to sign a contract for safe use. If they breach, then smartphone not to be used
- What issues/difficulties have you had after introducing smartphones? Mainly the cost and service users signing up for expensive contracts that they might not be able to afford. Bretton Centre
We have individualised care plans agreed with Primary Nurse, SU and MDT then they can be used on unescorted leave. We do a teaching session or two as needed for our LD guys. Newhaven
- Do you have a set process to assess & risk manage individual patients prior to granting access to a smartphone? Smart phones can only be used on unescorted leave external to the hospital.
- Are patients able to have these on the ward or just on leave? Just on Leave
- What checks do you have in place to ensure safe usage- both to protect the patient (thinking vulnerability) and against reoffending? We run an OT course on being internet safe and how to use smart phones
- What issues/difficulties have you had after introducing smartphones? Nothing major I can remember.
- And any other advice /information you could give us about what they have done introducing smartphones. We have basic phones now available on all wards across Wathwood with MDT approval however smart phones are only allowed on unescorted leave not escorted as we want interaction whilst on escorted leave. Wathwood
Click here to access the patient mobile phone contract for Moorlands View