Baroness Watkins is an international expert in nursing and healthcare delivery. She qualified as a general nurse in 1976 and a mental health nurse in 1979 and has worked in community, in-patient mental health and acute settings, providing non-emergency and emergency healthcare.
As a cross bench peer in the House of Lords, Baroness Watkins contributes regularly in the domains of health, education and housing. She is also emeritus professor of healthcare leadership at Plymouth University and Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university.
Stephen Firn, Cygnet’s CEO Healthcare Division, said: “I really appreciated the fact that Baroness Watkins spent two hours with us in the middle of her incredibly busy schedule to learn about and see for herself the standards and quality of care at Cygnet Churchill, and to talk with staff and service users.”
“As a mental health nurse, Baroness Watkins expressed how impressed she was with the care and compassionate work by all of the members of staff that she met and her admiration for the quality of care for our very vulnerable patient group.”
Theo Bello, Hospital Manager, reflected: “It has been a great day and it was important to show Baroness Watkins what we do at Cygnet Churchill. She has much experience in research, academia and in mental health but what was most important was her interest in the people who use our services. We discussed how important it is for people to have the tools to do their job, and I feel that Cygnet is leading in that department.”
“We also discussed patient care and the level of care that we give and some of the challenges across the mental health sector. We were able to illustrate some of the great work we’ve done, including to help change the culture of the hospital.”
Cygnet Churchill is a 57-bed inpatient mental health hospital for men. The hospital has four wards including an emergency acute admissions service and three high dependency inpatient rehabilitation services.
To find out more about the hospital click here.