St Mary's Hospital

More activities and compassionate night staff needed. On a whole the night staff let the standards slip and ruin the good job that the day staff do. It can be boring on the ward so we need more pampering, e.g. nails, hair, eyelashes etc. Smokers shouldn't have to cram three cigarettes into a fifteen minute break that is chain smoking. The staff are amazing considering the challenges that they face on the Shearwater ward.

Just wanted to point out the care I had with one of the nurses on the ward, Milena. She helped me order my shopping online, something that had previously been stressful. Lovely young lady.

I found the information from Louise throughout has been a life changing. I have grown emotionally from learning more about autism and can now put coping strategies in place to prevent burn out. At the start I felt hopeless and wanted to die and now I feel hopeful that I can have a better future and opportunity for support to be employed or do voluntary work. Very caring, professional and understand and exactly what I needed to cope with my diagnosis.

I had an appointment with a lady called ‘Jacqueline Y (RMN)’ at The Welland Centre in St Mary’s Hospital, Kettering. I am unsure of the date of this appointment as the wrong date was put on the leaflet that Jaqueline had written out for me and the appointment was made via telephone. I was told that after the appointment with her, there would be a meeting arranged with herself and two different nurses to discuss my wellbeing. I told her that I would like a doctor to be present in that meeting as I would like my diagnosis and medication reviewed. Jaqueline then told me they would push the meeting forward a few days to Monday so that the Doctor could be present. A few days after the meeting, I called up the number Jacqueline had left for me to be told by one of the nurses there that “there isn’t anyone by that name who works in this department.” I was then given a number of different ways to try and contact different services and get through to her. Two weeks after my appointment (after 6 different attempts of trying to make contact with Jacqueline and explaining my situation to a number of different receptionists and nurses) I was finally able to get through to someone to talk about the results of this 1 hour appointment I had with Jacqueline. First of all, I was put through to Karin (an occupational therapist) who didn’t seem to know anything about it, she then put me through to Jaqueline, who straight away (before I could even speak) told me she was going to transfer me back to Karin who “knows more about it” I then had to raise my voice and tell her not to transfer me back. Once she stayed on the phone, I then asked her what is happening about my appointment. She then went quiet as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. Then after I explained everything to her, she then said that I was not allowed to see a doctor, with no explanation as to why or any real information on what actually happened during their meeting. I asked her if she had explained everything I had said in the appointment about how bad my dissociation and trauma was getting and she replied with “the intention of the meeting on Monday was never to discuss your medication or diagnosis” At this point I was very angry and started to get quite upset. I told her that if she was never going to talk about my medication and diagnosis with a doctor (the whole reason for my appointment with Jacqueline) then why tell me that was part of the plan. She then replied with “I never said that.” I Told her that I have the leaflet with her name on it and in her writing, explaining that under ‘You Plan’ it says that the number 1 task Is “ emergency appointment with psychiatrist to review diagnosis 4 meds -team discussion on Monday” She then went quiet and didn’t say anything for a little while.. then when I told her to explain her self, she replied with “I’m sorry you don’t feel like you’re getting the help you need. “ I have kept this leaflet as proof of her lies and you should be able to find a copy of that recorded conversation of her denying her own written message. If not, I also have two witnesses: my friend Ben (who was with me through the appointment) and my counsellor (Amy) who i had on loudspeaker for about 20minutes of the appointment. It has been about 4 months since this event and I still haven’t had my medication or diagnosis reviewed. I asked for a telephone appointment with Dr Millwood as my physical symptoms from my mental health (vomiting and diarrhoea) where to severe for me to do a face to face appointment. Dr Millwood denied my request. The whole thing is disgusting and a horrible way to waste my time. I am very poorly and do not need this kind of neglect and lies to make things worse. These are the people that are reasponsile for looking after me ,and If I am being frank, all they have done is make things worse with false promises and their awful lack of communication with patients, and each other.

Staff are very patient. One patient goes out of her way to constantly be disruptive, offensive and discriminatory and staff deal with her patiently and efficiently when she is trying to cause a scene. She has put a lot of complaints in which are all made up and false and I wanted to speak up for the staff on Shearwater, especially Jerin who is subject to a lot of her abuse.