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Care Opinion

Community discharge from St Andrews Healthcare

Posted By bluesky123

"Community discharge from St Andrews Healthcare"

About: Locked & Specialist Rehab Medium Secure Division

(as the patient),

My experiences were mostly traumatising on all 3 different wards (Sunley, Stowe and Seacole) there was a very small amount of nurses and HCA's that actually showed they cared. It seemed like it was about controlling us rather than caring and man handling you before talking. Now I can not say this about all staff but I can say it about most staff.

Being in this service I never improved as I never felt I truly stood a chance. It was very rare that people ever got discharged which always made me question why? I believe if the staff had shown more care and less controlling behaviours it would have been much easier. Also I was denied the right to female psychologist and given my history with men  found this rather unhelpful and unsympathetic.

I got a lucky move when CQC closed Seacole everyone needed to be moved and my community team decided I needed to leave St Andrews whilst I had the chance as they too didn't think I stood much chance of getting out from St Andrews.

The doctors at St Andrews showed no belief in me in the slightest and very much made me often angry and upset. The point was proven when I moved to oxford roughly a year later I was being discharged it was discovered many of my behaviours were made worse by long term hospitalization.

I do hope that the staffing has improved at St Andrews in the women's service as I believe it does have potential with the right improvements in how to be caring and not so controlling and relying no man handling unsettled and distressed patients.

The thing I will forever struggle to understand is how they could justify some of the incidents that took place and how the staff never seemed to want to forgive the patients for the errors. I was no angel but I was not very well and although I hold my hands up and say I was wrong, most of the staff did not know how to do that so it seemed.

I will forever be grateful to the few staff that never seemed to give up on me and believed I could go on in life and have a future and now finally I have already started my new chapter in life. I do want to finish by saying that St Andrews wasn't always bad but there was more bad than good and I really hope in the future they only improve their care quality and hopefully less negative history and more positive stories.

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Responses

Response from Sue Coton, Senior Administrator, St Andrew's Healthcare 2 years ago
Sue Coton
Senior Administrator,
St Andrew's Healthcare

Submitted on 09/02/2022 at 15:06
Published on Care Opinion at 15:11

Response from Dr Alex Hamilton

Thank you for your honest feedback and I’m really glad you have done so well since leaving our care.

But, clearly your experience as a patient with us was challenging, and for that I am sorry. Since I took over as Clinical Lead in 2020 I have made a number of changes to the Women’s Medium Secure Service which I think have made a significant positive impact.

I would just like to clarify that it was St Andrew’s who closed Seacole ward, and not the CQC. We undertook a number of ward moves in 2020, and Stowe became Willow, before Sunley closed in January 2021. We have also opened a completely new admission ward in Fitzroy called Bracken

We accept there were challenges on Seacole, Stowe and Sunley wards, which we took appropriate actions to address.

Since 2020 we have focused on the challenges you have described. We have successfully embedded a positive support culture among our patients and workforce, and our focus is now very much on the quality of care. We have reduced our restrictive practices in collaboration with partner organisations in the NHS restrictions, and all patients have access to mobile phones and the internet when it is deemed safe and appropriate for each individual.

We only use seclusion and restraint as a last resort, and incidences of these have reduced significantly in the last year and we continue to work with each patient offering them co-produced, individualised care.

Once again thank you for your feedback and I hope this response gives you some assurance that the concerns you have raised have been taken very seriously.

Dr Alex Hamilton

Clinical Director for Medium Security

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Update posted by bluesky123 (the patient)

I'm very happy to hear that things have improved and really happy to know that new management has come in. It seems like you coming in has moved things on from worse to better and that the welfare of the patients is being respected more and that the patients are made to feel more human. I was under the belief Seacole was closed after pressure from CQC so sorry if I was wrong about that. I really hope St Andrews women service only grows to improve and doesn't go back to the way it was. Thank you for the response and good luck.

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