"Husband/Carers Review"

My wife was recently admitted under a section to Bluebell ward. Since she has been there, she has done extremely well. She is now established on her medication and we are able to go out and enjoy ourselves. She has also been taking part in the activities they have going on. I feel that the staff are very attentive and caring, working in a very challenging role they all give 100%, when she has been distressed and I have visited they have spoken to me about it and are genuinely very concerned about her. The psychiatrist and nurses have listened to both mine and her views and taken them on board to work with us, which has given the best outcome for her. Additionally they have trusted her, on occasions she has broken it but they have been very professional and explained the implications of breaking the trust and deescalated the situation and she has always come back around to the agreement made. I do feel that on weekends and evenings there is a clear lack of staff, whilst week days they are well staffed. I would suggest that possibly some of the additional staff in the week days would be best re-allocated to evenings and weekends to help support activities and the staff on then. However, the staff who are on do the best they can, multi-tasking many different roles between medication, checking patients, allowing for visitors, mountains of paperwork and many more jobs I see them doing. The meals I believe, from what I have heard are like traditional hospital meals, having a very acquired taste. Overall, I feel this is hospital, not a hotel. The members of staff are friendly and approachable but firm and fair when needed. I am really pleased my wife ended up in Bluebell ward, they have a fantastic multi-disciplinary team who all work extremely well and she’s been lucky to have them. Thank you all.