Supporting Lavender Ward patients to avoid relapse with Sound Minds
In order to provide better care to our patients, clinicians are working in lots of different ways to tackle our challenges and working in line with four vital principles – that care:
• Is purposeful
• Avoids crisis
• Is timely and least restrictive
• Is recovery focused
These projects are taking place across our adult services, with many taking a Quality Improvement approach – which means data is gathered, ideas are tested on a small scale, outcomes and benefits to patient care are measured and evaluated before whether to make permanent changes to the way we care for our patients.
Lavender Ward, for acute inpatients, sees some of our most unwell service users – and for some, it is not their first stay. One of the biggest reasons some of its patients need to be readmitted is because they have relapsed (become unwell again) after leaving hospital.
One of our former service users noticed that one of the reasons people relapse is a lack of support in the community after relationships
weaken while they are in a hospital. In order to build supportive relationships, a new project is seeing inpatients being supported to visit a service-user led mental health arts charity, Sound Minds, which delivers peer support to people with mental health conditions through music, film and art.
This new Quality Improvement pilot, coproduced with clinicians and people with Lived Experience, means multidisciplinary teams work to identify patients who could benefit from it, and to assess the support needed to leave the ward to attend the group.
Assistant psychologist on Lavender Ward Charlotte Nicholl said: “We usually join the service user on their first visit to Sound Minds, and I think that support is a good way for us to help service users begin to transition away from the ward.”
It’s hoped that this extra focus on our patients’ recovery can help to prevent relapse – helping patients to get better and also freeing up beds for those who urgently need to be cared for on a ward. The first few patients who visited Sound Minds earlier this year gave positive feedback, and the team will continue to evaluate the pilot’s benefits and results.
Lived Experience Practitioner David, who has been an inpatient several times at the Trust, had the idea to start this project after he had experienced Sound Minds for himself.
“I usually went in and out of hospital about once a year, but coming to Sound Minds twice a week to make music and art, and the connections I have made there, has helped me to stay well. I’ve got routine, purpose and structure in my life now. I think without Sound Minds I would have deteriorated again.”
Lavender Ward psychologist Joanna Carnell said:
“Learning new skills with Sound Minds helps increase people’s positive beliefs about themselves by creating something meaningful, as well as creating meaningful attachments for when our service users rejoin the community. By doing this, we hope to support people to avoid another admission to hospital and to move more quickly towards recovery.”
