Basildon Mental Health Unit 2023-09-01 Person 1 5 0

Some members of staff were absolute angels. They comforted me when distressed and provided me with a listening ear when I needed it. Sadly, they were few and far between. On many occasions I was left to cry alone for hours, as staff were too busy either dealing with other "severely unwell" patients or hiding in the office filling out paperwork. I have a primary diagnosis of EUPD and it is heavily stigmatised, even by health professionals. Especially by the consultant on Grangewaters at the time, 2019 (Dr. Mundemphilly), who took me off all my medication (which was ineffective) but refused to try anything different, claiming "medication doesn't work for EUPD". Which is clearly untrue, because as soon as I was transferred to Cygnet, the consultant there immediately started me on three or four new medications to stabilise my symptoms. Mundemphilly also tried to discharge me when I was still desperately suicidal. I ended up taking a huge overdose of quetiapine whilst still on the ward (half a box of tablets that I had managed to steal from the hatch one meds time because the nurse turned his back for several minutes and left it on the counter. And they never even noticed it was missing!) and I ended up in ICU. It got noted as a failed discharge. One of my methods of self-harm was severe head-banging. Often I was left to continue without support. On one such occasion, I was left for a full hour with no help whatsoever. The NIC told all the staff to "leave me to it". Even my 1:1 who was meant to be observing and providing support just sat there and watched me violently hurl myself at the wall, blood pooling at my feet. And I am on long term blood thinners, so there was a risk of internal bleeding to the brain. Despite this, they didn't send me for a CT scan afterwards and I had to wait until 6am the next morning to see the on-call doctor (and that was only after my father phoned the ward to put pressure on them to get me examined - they didn't listen to my pleas). Interestingly, immediately after the incident, and once I had exhausted myself self-harming, I tried to take photographs on my phone to provide evidence to make a complaint. Well I would have done so, if it weren't for the fact they confiscated my phone (as they often did whenever I had an incident, as a form of punishment) and refused to hand it back until I'd cleaned the blood off the wall and floor. They knew of my intention to try to gather evidence, and eventually cleaned it up themselves, before finally handing my phone back. When I then posted on social media to vent my experience, somehow they discovered it and shouted at me to try and get me to take the post down! I would like to add that searches when returning from ground/home leave are not thorough enough by far. I managed to conceal medication (to self-medicate and overdose on) on so many occasions, usually ending up with either paramedics on scene or me being admitted to general hospital. I even managed to conceal a very sharp item on me for the whole 6 months I was on this ward, which I used often to self-harm. I was simply not kept safe. As stated above, I was on 1:1 observations for some of my inpatient stay. And I am disgusted to say, staff falling asleep on obs was a common occurrence. Or some staff brought phones and magazines into my bed space to pass the time, hence not concentrating on the patient they were meant to be supervising. Many times these magazines were then left in my bedspace, containing staples that I extracted to self-harm with. Therefore I do not feel I was kept safe 100% of the time. Finally, I did not feel at all supported with my eating disorder. Because I was not underweight, they simply did not care. Apart from on two occasions, they did not provide any meal support, and when I got upset (and ended up head-banging from feelings of guilt and being overwhelmed), I was told I had to "take responsibility for my eating" - well yes, I did take responsibility for my eating, but I could've done with some compassion when dealing with the distressing thoughts and feelings sirrounding food!

As far as my experience goes, Grangewaters ward and the whole of Basildon Mental Health Unit, is unfit for purpose. It does not keep patients safe and for patients with EUPD, they are completely discriminated against. You could see the difference in treatment and interactions with staff between patients with EUPD and those with other mental illnesses. Therefore I believe more training for staff needs to be done in personality disorders. Same can be said for eating disorders - they are MENTAL DISORDERS, not WEIGHT DISORDERS! I am aware that mental health services in this country are severely underfunded and this is evident on the wards. Understaffed and over-worked staff were on every shift. It is clear that more staff are needed on the wards to keep patients safe. Then perhaps there would not be staff falling asleep on obs. Until then, there will continue to be deaths on wards such as this.