Our achievements

Posted on 19 Jul 2021

The Trust has been shortlisted for four National Service User Awards.

Dr Sue Elcock, Executive Medical Director/ Executive Director of Forensic Services said: “I am absolutely thrilled that these amazing collaborative projects have been shortlisted. They really highlight the great work that is being done jointly with colleagues and service users to improve service users care and experience.

"Everyone involved has worked so hard on these projects which have had such a positive impact and I wish everyone the best of luck for the next stage.”

Our Transitional Stories Project has been shortlisted in the Excellence in Co-Production/Breaking Down Barriers category. Transitional Stories was a project that was ran on Brecon, the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) in the Personality Disorder Service, at Rampton Hospital. The purpose of this project was to encourage individuals to talk about their experiences of life on a PICU. It aimed to encourage individuals to challenge stigma and self-stigmatisation. They started with creating Brecon Babushkas, designing 3 images to illustrate how they want to be seen, how they think they are viewed by others, and how they feel deep down (what others rarely see). As well as helping patients connect at the beginning of the group, these also helped them realise that they were not alone with many of their feelings. They then went on to design and develop boards that illustrated the role of Brecon.

Next we have the National High Secure Healthcare Services for Women poetry competition at Rampton Hospital, which has been shortlisted in the Recovery and the Arts category. These service users are incredibly talented and relish the idea of creating something that not only helps themselves through their own recovery process but helps others through theirs and a poetry competition was an excellent way of doing just that. The remit for the project was simple – they could write about anything! They wrote about love, hope, healing, recovery, personal struggles and transformations, and many other subjects.

Next we have another project from the National High Secure Healthcare Services for Women at Rampton Hospital. Their sensory gardens project was shortlisted in the Health and Wellbeing category. Sapphire gardens is a space therapies and education (TED) staff have developed and use for therapeutic sessions across the women’s services. It aims to teach life skills, spark creativity, encourages team working and problem solving and encourages physical activity.

Finally, the teams on Cannock and Coniston Ward at Arnold Lodge have been shortlisted for their ‘how to become an effective patient representative’ project, in the Outstanding Service User Achievement Award category. This project was designed at the request of service users to address a lack of confidence and skill in fulfilling a role for patients to have a voice at both local and divisional meetings. The patients designed a co-produced course to be delivered through the Trust’s recovery college. As part of this they looked at their own experiences of being a patient representative and the feedback they had from other service users who had anxieties about these roles. This course will be shared with other recovery colleges as part of best practice.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 21 September 2021. Visit https://www.nsua.org/about/ for details.