Creating Therapeutic Relations With Patients – based on experiences of people affected by a mental health condition
Recently, one of our Experts by Experience shared their experiences of prescribing and reviewing of medication with fellow Experts. This conversation sparked a meeting between Niki, Shelagh (Expert by Experience), Dr Stephen Jones (Chief Pharmacist Derbyshire Healthcare and Chair of Derbyshire Pharmacy Faculty) and Dr Rais Ahmed (Clinical Director at Derbyshire Healthcare).
From this initial meeting came an invite for Mental Health Together to attend the Medical Senate meeting with psychiatrists from across Derby and Derbyshire.
Many voices of lived experiences were shared and personal examples from recent and past experiences on hospital wards and in the community. Some of the key points were that people do not feel their medication is reviewed regularly enough with them. They also feel that better and more accessible information should be made available. And most importantly they want a good therapeutic relationship with their psychiatrist so that decisions are made between patient and psychiatrist in a trusting and open manner.
“It was extremely powerful to hear feedback directly from Carer Experts and Experts by Experience of their contact with our services. Rose, Jean, Sandra, Hazel & Shelagh gave a valuable insight into how they experience services. Speaking about both how services can do better, and what “good” looks like. Thank you for sharing your feedback, which certainly gave me a lot to think about!”
– Dr Kopal Tandon, Consultant Psychiatrist at Kingsway Hospital Derby
Several actions were agreed from the meeting. Arun Chidambaram (Medical Director) said he had heard from us how important it is to have the right medication (bearing in mind all personal information and patient/carer views), at the right time (decreasing or increasing in a timely and agreed manner) and accompanied by the right information (helpful, accessible).
He also assured us that the culture of not properly consulting the person (and carers) and not giving information etc is past (or should be!). That is not acceptable anymore. Discharge summaries and clinical letters should always be addressed to the patient (and copied to the carer if agreed) unless indicated otherwise and this will be brought up in appraisal and job planning. Mental Health Together Experts are working with the Pharmacy team in producing an empowering leaflet to replace previous material.