Category: Mental health

Skellern Award and MHNAUK meet-up

My general election postal vote cast, June 8th began with a PhD examination at City University London moving as the day progressed to London South Bank University for this year’s Eileen Skellern Lecture and Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Lifetime Achievement Award.

As Skellern Lecturer Mary Chambers gave a fine, interactive, presentation emphasising the importance of making visible the invisible work of mental health nurses. Here’s Mary with Ben Thomas and Isaac Marks, no less. Amongst other things Mary talked about her work developing the Therapeutic Engagement Questionnaire, a tool designed to establish the value of mental health nursing.

Len Bowers was recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. He gave a deeply personal, altogether humorous, account of his career in mental health nursing, highlighting in particular the curious accidents which helped propel him to the forefront of the profession. Len’s Safewards programme, of course, was no accident and his contribution to improving mental health nursing practice through research of this type continues to be sorely missed in the months following his retirement. Here he is receiving his award from Alan Simpson.

Friday was a meeting of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK, hosted by Sally Hardy at London South Bank University. Detailed notes from the meeting will appear in due course on the group’s website. In the morning Katie Evans from the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute talked about the associations between mental health problems and money difficulties, making the point that debt advice (which is a regulated activity) needs to be incorporated into care pathways where necessary.

MHNAUK is in the process of setting up permanent standing groups, covering the areas of: research; education; policy and practice; and communication. Each group now has a lead person, and each group has plenty to do. The education group, led by Anne Felton, will be coordinating MHNAUK’s response to the NMC’s consultation on proposed new standards for pre-registration nurses. At this last week’s meeting, under the education group agenda item, members heard about plans for this autumn’s #FutureMHN conference. The research group, led by Mary Chambers, will be coordinating MHNAUK’s work in the context of the future Research Excellence Framework. On Friday, as part of the research group update I gave a progress review for this year’s #MHNR2017 conference. The policy and practice group is led by John Baker, and members (John included) have been working on (amongst other things) safe staffing. The final group is communications, led by Steven Pryjmachuk and me.

Mental health awareness week

Mental Health Awareness Week 2017 has the theme of ‘surviving or thriving’, this also being the title of a new report from the Mental Health Foundation. Included in this document is a summary of research completed by NatCen, on behalf of the Mental Health Foundation, into the prevalence of mental health problems across the population and into the activities that people do to manage these.

Here’s a snip from the report, summarising the self-reported difficulties experienced by the 2,290 people who took part:

MHF thriving
Extracted from Surviving or thriving

Using their NatCen data the Mental Health Foundation goes on to highlight major health inequalities. Almost three quarters of those on the lowest household income report experience of mental health difficulties, compared to six in ten of the wealthiest. A large majority of unemployed people responding reported experience of mental health problems, with women and younger people also particularly affected.

These findings are broadly in line with those reported in the most recent Mental Health and Wellbeing in England Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, the data for which was collected in 2014. This is the latest in a series of studies dating back to 1993, involving (in the 2014 iteration) a sample of some 7,500 people. In the case of Surviving or thriving, the new (to me, at any rate) detail is the reporting of what actions people take to help themselves with their difficulties. Here’s another snip:

Surviving 2
Extracted from Surviving or thriving

Family and friends, outdoor physical activity and hobbies look to be the three most-used strategies. I can’t say I’m surprised by this, and am reminded of the value placed in relationships with others by people taking part in COCAPP.

Elsewhere during Mental Health Awareness Week, The Guardian has published a number of pieces including this one on the shortage of mental health nurses and this one on Hafal‘s Gellinudd Recovery Centre (about which I previously blogged here). Coincidentally, this is also the month that the full and final report from COCAPP-A has been accepted for publication: well done Alan Simpson for leading this work. This mighty tome, reporting from our cross-national study into care planning and coordination in acute mental health inpatient settings, has now proceeded to the production arm of the NIHR and is scheduled to appear in gold open access form towards the end of the year. In the meantime, work is progressing to produce papers for journals. More on these to follow in due course.

PhD opportunity

KESS2With Nicola Evans and Rebecca Playle I’m on the look-out for someone to begin a full-time PhD in the autumn, investigating the interventions and processes that promote young people’s connection to their education, friends and families during inpatient mental health care. This is a Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship (KESS2), which is part funded by the Welsh Government’s European Social Fund (ESF) West Wales and the Valleys programme. It has also been developed in collaboration with Cwm Taf University Health Board which is making a contribution to the award.

For those interested, the studentship has been explicitly designed to build on our RiSC evidence synthesis, about which I have previously written here, here and here. We found significant knowledge gaps in this previous project, which we’re now anticipating this PhD will begin to fill.

#MHNAUK Lecturer wanted

The clock is winding down on the call for abstracts for the 23rd International Mental Health Nursing Research conference, taking place in Cardiff on September 14th-15th. As readers of the relaunched website of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK will know, nominations are currently being sought for the inaugural MHNAUK Lecturer. Reflecting the work of MHNAUK the Lecture will:

[…] be delivered by a mental health nurse in, or out of, the UK who in the opinion of the MHNR committee, the Chair and the Vice Chair of MHNAUK has made a significant contribution to the promotion and enhancement of mental health nursing education, research, policy and/or practice.

Perhaps, over the coming bank holiday weekend, readers of this blog might give some thought about possible nominees? We’re welcoming self-nominations, and nominations coming from others.

As always, spread the word!

 

#MHNAUK meets at the University of Hertfordshire

MHNAUK met on March 31st at the University of Hertfordshire, hosted by Greg Rooney and chaired by Steven Pryjmachuk. Anne Trotter from the NMC was welcomed for a detailed discussion on the development of new standards for pre-registration nursing, and on the NMC’s wider work to create a framework for education of which this is […]

via #MHNAUK meets at the University of Hertfordshire  — MHNAUK

Research ideas wanted

There are lots of reasons why researchers should collaborate with people with experience of using health and social care services. For an insight into public and patient involvement in research, from the perspectives of all involved, check out this repository of Healthtalk videos. 

For some years I have been a member of the National Centre for Mental Health Service User and Carer Research Partnership (SUCRP). Much as the Service User and Carer Group Advising on Research (SUGAR) based at City University London has been doing, SUCRP is now creating opportunities for mental health researchers to secure service users’ and carers’ views on their ideas and project proposals. Slots are available, right now, and information (including on how to book in) can be found in the flyer below:

https://cloudup.com/ccCCKDq288z

This is an excellent initiative, which needs publicising and support. Spread the word. 

 

Safe staffing (again)

safe staffingJust over a year ago I posted a short piece on this site on safe staffing, particularly noting the work of Shaun Lintern and John Baker in alerting people to the importance of this in the mental health nursing context. Since then, the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 has passed into law, and the Welsh Government has opened this consultation on its draft statutory guidance for Local Health Boards and NHS Trusts. My colleague Aled Jones is coordinating a School of Healthcare Sciences response.

Here in Wales, the duty to calculate nurse staffing levels is currently limited to adult acute medical and surgical inpatient wards. In each NHS organisation with responsibilities in these fields, the Government’s draft document refers to the appointment of a ‘designated person’ with the job of calculating nurse staffing levels using three elements:

  • professional judgement;
  • use of an evidence-based workforce planning tool; and
  • a consideration of the extent to which patients’ wellbeing is sensitive to nursing care.

Making these calculations, I can only imagine, will be a mighty challenging task requiring in-depth understanding of individual wards, the characteristics of patients admitted, and use of a tool which has (so far as I understand it) yet to be finalised.

Meanwhile, via John Baker I learn today of this new publication by NHS Improvement on safe, sustainable and productive staffing in mental health services. This is not about safe nursing staffing, but is about interprofessional staffing in specialist mental health services. Here I read of expectations around right staff, right skills and right place, right time and also spot a rapid review of the relevant literature. This begins with the understated observation that, ‘the issue of safe and sustainable staffing in mental health is complex and research is lacking’. I should say so. The time is ripe, I think, for some serious independent studies in this area.

 

Abstract top tips

img_6122As I mentioned in this earlier post, last month I made the trip to the RCN’s headquarters in London for a first planning meeting for this coming September’s 23rd International Mental Health Nursing Research Conference. Handily for me, we’re meeting in Cardiff: and the call for abstracts will be published soon (very soon). This will include information on the themes for #MHNR2017, and guidance on the preparation and submission of abstracts. Further down the line, sometime in May, the scientific committee will convene to deliberate over which abstracts to accept.

Here, then, are some top tips for people sharpening their pencils in anticipation of the call appearing. When the conference scientific committee meets to pool our individual abstract assessments and to make decisions we’ll be looking, generally put, for well-presented submissions which follow our published guidelines. This may sound obvious, but experience suggests that not everyone submitting abstracts pays close attention to the information provided. We’ll be looking for evidence of relevance to mental health nursing, and commitments to rigour. We will also pay considerable attention to the categorisation of abstracts. Workshops need to involve work; proposals for these should therefore promise interaction and participant activity. Suggestions for symposia should offer to bring a number of people together to present papers on a shared theme, and be presented as a package. Proposals for concurrent sessions should present work completed or well underway; offers to present findings from studies in which data have yet to be generated are unlikely to be accepted. In these cases, submitting poster abstracts might be a better option. And, whilst our conference themes are important, they are not intended to serve as straightjackets: so abstracts relevant to the field but which do not fit perfectly are still worth submitting.

I’ll post more on the conference and its call for papers as things unfold. In the meantime, dig that keyboard out and prepare to get writing.

Out with the old

Happy new year. In one of my earliest posts on this blog I wrote of coming across a fallen tree. Over the months and years following this became something of a local landmark for those of us fond of making the trip over Craig yr Allt by foot. The tree was removed sometime last autumn, with tyre tracks telling a tale. I’ll add its disappearance to the long list of last year’s losses, included on which are Carrie Fisher, George Michael and the security of Britain remaining in the EU.

2016-10-28-08-40-23

If 2016 had more than its fair share of trampling, and like the track up Craig yr Allt bowed out with its topsoil removed, perhaps this year will be different. Or maybe not. Anyway…

As 2017 gets underway I’ve opened my term of office as Vice Chair of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK with a fruitful conversation with Steven Pryjmachuk, the group’s Chair for this year and next. Ideas for refreshing the MHNAUK website, and our March meeting at the University of Hertfordshire, were amongst things on the agenda. We’ll have lots to talk about; as I observed in my last post, a number of important things are afoot with likely changes to the education of nurses and the beginnings of plans being laid for the next research excellence framework.

Elsewhere, the forthcoming care planning and care coordination themed issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing which Michael Coffey, Alan Simpson and I are guest editing is taking shape nicely. We have some super articles lined up, and will be writing editorials in the near future.

Later in the year, in September, the newly renamed International Mental Health Nursing Research Conference (the NPNR, as was) meets in Cardiff. I’ll be off to a conference planning meeting in London in a week’s time where we’ll be talking about a theme for #MHNR2017 and possible keynote speakers. I’ll perhaps blog something about that when we’re done.

marie-et-al-2017On the publications front, Mohammad Marie has lead authored (with Aled Jones and me in support) this latest paper. It’s all about the challenges faced by Palestinian community mental health nurses, and represents the fourth article emerging from Mohammad’s PhD thesis in something like 18 months. That’s good going indeed. Here’s the abstract:

Background:
Nurses in Palestine (occupied Palestinian territory) work in a significantly challenging environment. The mental health care system is underdeveloped and under-resourced. For example, the total number of nurses who work in community mental health centres in the West Bank is seventeen, clearly insufficient in a total population of approximately three million. This research explored daily challenges that Palestinian community mental health nurses (CMHNs) face within and outside their demanding workplaces.
Methods:
An interpretive qualitative design was chosen. Face-to-face interviews were completed with fifteen participants. Thirty-two hours of observations of the day-to-day working environment and workplace routines were conducted in two communities’ mental health centres. Written documents relating to practical job-related policies were also collected from various workplaces. Thematic analysis was used across all data sources resulting in four main themes, which describe the challenges faced by CMHNs.
Results and conclusion:
These themes consist of the context of unrest, stigma, lack of resources, and organisational or mental health system challenges. The study concludes with a better understanding of challenges in nursing which draws on wider cultural contexts and resilience. The outcomes from this study can be used to decrease the challenges for health professionals and enhance the mental health care system in Palestine.