I would give you a 0 but that’s not possible so I give you a 1
Luke W268 days ago
Pretty alright but didn't let me have my jam jars
Reactions that are Adequate299 days ago
If I could rate it 0, I would in a heartbeat. I was kept here on a section when I was 15 and came out with all of the same MH difficulties that I went in with, except now extremely traumatised from the institutionalisation, the things that I witnessed and I learnt how to SH from the other patients (or should I say prisoners, based on how we were treated?) I was bullied by staff members who didn't like my personality, I witnessed young girls suffering with severe anorexia being taunted by staff for not eating, they would make fun of them for how thin they were in front of them and other patients, whilst scoffing biscuits themselves. Ironically, I was essentially starved for 4 months due to an unwillingness to cater towards my dietary restrictions. I would often go days on end without eating until an option would crop up on the menu that they were aware I could eat. I witnessed patients who were vegetarian being forced to eat animal products because there were no alternative options for them, they felt that they had no other choice. They began to ration the snacks between all of us due to also very hungry, teenaged male patients "taking advantage" of what was supplied to us (i.e. taking three packets of crisps at a time), they made it a rule that we could only have ONE item each, when many patients hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. When pressed, staff told us to prepare our own meals despite a distinct unwillingness to take patients shopping (or off the ward at all, in general) and an outright obvious distain for allowing patients to use the kitchen, despite this also being one of our only ways to provide ourselves with drinks and essential personal hygiene items. As it had to be unlocked before every use, more often than not the request to have the kitchen unlocked was ignored and brushed off as being unimportant. I became severely dehydrated as the only other drinks provided were at set meal times when two small jugs of squash were expected to be shared between 12 patients and ALL OF THE STAFF - who would often take advantage of our resources and break their own rules when binging on our snacks and using their smartphones on the ward. Eventually, we were forbidden from accessing our emails, as it was deemed to be a form of social media, even though this is how patients would access their school and college work (this concluded with some patients being kicked out of education whilst inpatient). This is also how many of us contacted our loved ones, as we shared one landline between us and the entire staff office. Our requests to use the landline were often declined because the staff were using the phone instead. I was accused of trying to seduce the male staff, when in reality, certain male staff members were making inappropriate sexualised jokes about me to the other patients. The female staff tried to disallow me from wearing shorts during the hot summer because "you can't wear that, men work here" this seemed to imply to me that they believed us girls were not safe around the men. I was accused of this because certain male staff members were my favourites, I would seek them out whilst they were working if I felt that I was having a hard time and that I needed support because they were understanding and genuinely kind to me. I was then forbidden to talk to the male staff and the female staff would taunt me for being "promiscuous", when really this just left me with only peer support as there were now no HCAs that I could truly trust or feel comfortable around. When patients requested to see the general practitioner, it could take weeks for him to be informed that he was needed on the ward and the staff's ability to perform a personal search is incredibly laughable, every single patient possessed contraband of some kind or another, but always harmful. There were constant medical emergencies which were very traumatizing to witness for everybody, because of this.
Ella Bennett1 year ago
I stayed here for a few weeks in 2012 and even during such a short stay, it was deeply traumatising. Children that needed 1:1’s were left unsupervised, meaning that several times I was threatened with violence, including waking up to find a person in psychosis standing above me whilst I’d been asleep.
Staff often said unprofessional and cruel comments. A general lack of supervision meant that some of the children were aggressive and bullying. They were able to access my room without my consent and left nasty notes — This was very frightening.
On another occasion, I walked into my room to find a member of staff (a cleaner?) sitting on my bed and openly reading my diary — I cannot put into words how violated this made me feel. I came out of that place more traumatised than when I went in. When I left, they would not let me bring my medication home with me (which I paid for), and they never gave back clothing items belonging to my dead Mum.
Alison Willcock2 years ago
They don't treat illness unless the ill person accepts it, which isn't usually the case with mental health. My son is still very unwell and believes things and speaks about things that are not real. Good luck with the nhs system, any family is going to need it. They are likely to diagnose Autism, its there answer to all child psychiatric problems!!!
I was kept here on a section when I was 15 and came out with all of the same MH difficulties that I went in with, except now extremely traumatised from the institutionalisation, the things that I witnessed and I learnt how to SH from the other patients (or should I say prisoners, based on how we were treated?)
I was bullied by staff members who didn't like my personality, I witnessed young girls suffering with severe anorexia being taunted by staff for not eating, they would make fun of them for how thin they were in front of them and other patients, whilst scoffing biscuits themselves.
Ironically, I was essentially starved for 4 months due to an unwillingness to cater towards my dietary restrictions. I would often go days on end without eating until an option would crop up on the menu that they were aware I could eat. I witnessed patients who were vegetarian being forced to eat animal products because there were no alternative options for them, they felt that they had no other choice.
They began to ration the snacks between all of us due to also very hungry, teenaged male patients "taking advantage" of what was supplied to us (i.e. taking three packets of crisps at a time), they made it a rule that we could only have ONE item each, when many patients hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. When pressed, staff told us to prepare our own meals despite a distinct unwillingness to take patients shopping (or off the ward at all, in general) and an outright obvious distain for allowing patients to use the kitchen, despite this also being one of our only ways to provide ourselves with drinks and essential personal hygiene items. As it had to be unlocked before every use, more often than not the request to have the kitchen unlocked was ignored and brushed off as being unimportant. I became severely dehydrated as the only other drinks provided were at set meal times when two small jugs of squash were expected to be shared between 12 patients and ALL OF THE STAFF - who would often take advantage of our resources and break their own rules when binging on our snacks and using their smartphones on the ward.
Eventually, we were forbidden from accessing our emails, as it was deemed to be a form of social media, even though this is how patients would access their school and college work (this concluded with some patients being kicked out of education whilst inpatient). This is also how many of us contacted our loved ones, as we shared one landline between us and the entire staff office. Our requests to use the landline were often declined because the staff were using the phone instead.
I was accused of trying to seduce the male staff, when in reality, certain male staff members were making inappropriate sexualised jokes about me to the other patients. The female staff tried to disallow me from wearing shorts during the hot summer because "you can't wear that, men work here" this seemed to imply to me that they believed us girls were not safe around the men. I was accused of this because certain male staff members were my favourites, I would seek them out whilst they were working if I felt that I was having a hard time and that I needed support because they were understanding and genuinely kind to me. I was then forbidden to talk to the male staff and the female staff would taunt me for being "promiscuous", when really this just left me with only peer support as there were now no HCAs that I could truly trust or feel comfortable around.
When patients requested to see the general practitioner, it could take weeks for him to be informed that he was needed on the ward and the staff's ability to perform a personal search is incredibly laughable, every single patient possessed contraband of some kind or another, but always harmful. There were constant medical emergencies which were very traumatizing to witness for everybody, because of this.
Staff often said unprofessional and cruel comments. A general lack of supervision meant that some of the children were aggressive and bullying. They were able to access my room without my consent and left nasty notes — This was very frightening.
On another occasion, I walked into my room to find a member of staff (a cleaner?) sitting on my bed and openly reading my diary — I cannot put into words how violated this made me feel. I came out of that place more traumatised than when I went in. When I left, they would not let me bring my medication home with me (which I paid for), and they never gave back clothing items belonging to my dead Mum.