Meadows Mews, our community residential service for men with neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative conditions based in Tipton, has been nominated in the Care Provider of the Year category.
After discharge from an acute environment, the care a person receives can play a transformative role in their ongoing recovery; often, it is the support they receive during this time which can truly supercharge their rehab. This award will recognise the providers whose care is delivering beyond-expectation outcomes in a positive environment, with care delivered by a supported and committed team.
Service manager Jacqueline Johnson said: “We place individuals at the heart of everything in a partnership arrangement wherever possible. A robust and effective community reintegration programme is provided for those coming out of a hospital setting to ensure that they can achieve their most independent and positive lifestyle, taking full advantage of all their hard work to achieve a level of recovery that can allow them to explore living in the community.
“We know it is a daunting thought for service users to go from a hospital setting to living in the community with minimal restrictions. This is why residents at Meadows Mews continue to receive psychiatric, psychological, occupational therapy and support worker interventions and support, as required. The aim of this treatment is to complete brain injury rehabilitation in the community setting with emphasis on making the necessary specialist help available outside the hospital setting.”
“Our service allows people to make mistakes; not to have those mistakes held over them forever and maximise the positive risk taking opportunities already commenced within a more formal setting.”
Highlights from our most recent service user survey at Meadows Mews demonstrate the life-changing impact staff have:
- 100% of service users have always felt safe during their time in hospital
- 100% of individuals feel staff are caring and supportive
- 100% of service users think there are always enough staff to support them
Jacqueline added: “The team at Meadows use humour and creativity to engage with service users; they listen to what each service user wants to do and works with them to help them get where they need to be.
“Often these services users have had multiple other attempts at community reintegration and they have failed; often they have been told that their risks are too great and that their choices in long term living opportunities within the community are very limited. The Meadows team unlocks that hidden potential; nurtures their service users to enable them to make informed choices about how to keep their options open long into the future and works with them to find the right path for them.
“Service users are at the heart of all decisions made at Meadows Mews and they are included in making decisions about their care, support, and life choices. I am incredibly proud of my team for being recognised at the Neuro Rehab Times awards.”
Cygnet Neuropsychiatric Services, with a focus on Cygnet Brunel, has also been named a finalist in the Above and Beyond category, which looks to recognise the commitment of individuals, teams or whole organisations in truly going that extra mile, going ‘above and beyond’ their line of work to achieve something remarkable.
Listen to our podcast, Nurturing our Communities Together, featuring service users at Cygnet Brunel discussing the co-produced initiatives they’ve worked on including Cygnet’s first service user-led Quality Improvement (QI) project. The QI initiative was also presented at the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Co-Production Network by Miles, a service user who is leading the project to improve engagement from peers about the hospital environment and care pathways.
Miles’ experience and his role in sharing how far he has come is a powerful example of what individuals can achieve with the right intensive specialist support. It gives hope to others that recovery is possible. Miles said, “I believe projects like this will enhance service users’ recovery to reduce the hospital environment setting and make it more family orientated.”
The café located in the heart of Cygnet Brunel is another amazing example of how we are determined to go above and beyond to provide our complex patient group with a diverse range of activities and skills to facilitate their achievement towards goals they set with the team.
Whilst it may have been born from frustration of the national COVID restrictions the benefits have gone way beyond this timeframe. Not all service users can initially cope with exposure to the community; this has to be introduced over time and allow for a graded exposure to the busy and often confusing and over stimulating local high streets. The café tries to provide some normality to the experiences of those working towards extended community leave and lets them try out those vital social skills.
Quality Initiative projects and cafes are two exceptional examples of Cygnet’s teams and service users going above and beyond; but every day something amazing happens in Cygnet’s Neuropsychiatry services and the world opens up for our service users just that little bit more.
Good luck to our finalists, winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on October 26.