Advice about Perinatal Mental Health Team please

[Littleloulou]

Hello,

I am trying to find out information and I dont know where to find it. I know from dealing with mental health teams many years in the past I was given lots of useful advice and leaflets in relation to those specific teams. The information was things like

-Their privacy policy

- My rights

- How to voice concerns and who to address them to

I never ever had any of those concerns with those teams but I do with the current Perinatal Mental Health team and I'm wondering if anybody could give me any help or advice regarding how I would find these things out or does Privacy, rights etc....be the same across the whole of the NHS?

I don't want to keep phoning the Perinatal Mental Health Team because I don't seem to get anywhere when I do and because I don't even know who these questions should be directed to so I feel I sound stupid when I do phone them.

Thank you!

[Maria_at_APP Moderator]

Hi Littleloulou, I am sorry you have been awake the last 2 nights worrying and thinking about this, it must be very distressing for you and your family. An avenue I would suggest to initially try is to perhaps ask your husband or a close family member to request the Privacy Policy and Complaints Procedure to your Perinatal Team, or the ones from the HSC trust they belong to if they don't have an individual policy.

I also found that the Patient and Client Council in NI can help with questions and concerns about health and social care services, you can also request advocacy support through them:

pcc-ni.net/advocacy/

I am really sorry the team looking after you have left you feeling frustrated and not heard, I think it is really important to voice your concerns with the support of family and friends. Jenny's suggestion of writing down the things that are upsetting you is a good one, maybe keep a notebook next to your bedside table and jot down what comes into your head at night time, it stops me from mulling things over then and I can look at it in the morning more refreshed.

Take really good care, let us know how you are getting on

[Littleloulou in reply to Maria_at_APP]

Hello Maria,

Thank you for your informative reply to my post. Thank you for the link to the patient council advocacy. I think it is a sensible suggestion to ask my husband to make inquiries on my behalf because then maybe they will be dealt with better.

I am going to write everything down and try to decide the best way to approach the team so that the current issues can be dealt with and further problems can hopefully be avoided. I'll update how I get on when I find out more.

The situation is still annoying me but I'm trying my best not to dwell on it and managed to sleep really well the past two nights thankfully.

[Maria_at_APP Moderator in reply to Littleloulou]

Hi Littleloulou, thanks for updating us on your plan, I am glad you have managed some good sleep recently. Take good care, here for anything u may need

[The_Wes_Anderson_Fan Volunteer]

Hi LittleloulouDespite your perinatal team being community based, they will be connected to a local mental health hospital. If it's local to you, it may be worth a visit as my local mental health hospital have leaflets in the main reception covering all these issues. The leaflets are universal. I hope this helps.

[Littleloulou in reply to The_Wes_Anderson_Fan]

Thank you The_Wes_Anderson_Fan for your reply,Good to know hopefully there will be some information leaflets available if I have a look.

[Naomi_at_app Volunteer]

Hi Littleloulou

I've just been reading your previous posts and I'm so sorry to hear that you feel very let down by your current perinatal mental health team. The teams are so new in Northern Ireland that I imagine they're not yet hugely experienced in supporting a mother who has had previous PP. It's very sad to hear that they're not being sensitive to your past difficulties with trusting services and that you feel a bit like you don't know where to turn.

So, a couple of things from my own work in perinatal mental health services when I lived in Devon. Firstly, that a confidentiality agreement should certainly have been given to you and you should have had the opportunity to sign it at the point you were taken on to the caseload. As with all NHS services, confidential information can be shared with other agencies such as social care and your GP/other health professionals only if there is a significant concern for your safety or the safety of others. Even in these circumstances you should be informed that your information is going to be shared.

In terms of finding out what the correct policies and procedures are for your community perinatal mental health team, these should be available via the perinatal service manager at the NHS Trust the team is part of. If you have no response from the perinatal team manager (which just seems so unprofessional) then you can go to the next level up which would be to contact the Health & Social Care Trust for your area directly and ask for your query / complaint to be directed to the Board of Directors or the Programme Manager for Perinatal Mental Health.

Contact details for each of the Health & Social Care Trusts in NI are here:

nidirect.gov.uk/contacts/he...

If you would like to message me directly using the chat function here (paper aeroplane icon) and let me know which Trust area you are in, I'm happy to support you with getting contact details for the service managers at different levels.

It feels really important to ensure that your rights are being respected in the service. In our experience in Devon, new services do need to be able to act on feedback both positive and negative in order to develop and better understand the needs of the families they look after.

All the best

Naomi

[Littleloulou in reply to Naomi_at_app]

Hello Naomi,

Thank you so much for your extremely informative and helpful reply. I think unfortunately you are correct about the team being relatively new and still finding their feet. I think I was so relieved to finally get a referral to a specialist team and that everything I was told about them during the referral made me feel reassured and happy.

I think from speaking to them that they are nice people and they genuinely do want to do good and help people. However by telling me one thing and doing another and by making mistakes they have unintentionally caused me turmoil. Its hard to explain without going into detail.

My family although also annoyed at things which have happened are worried that if I complain that it will only cause me further problems and solve nothing. I don't actually want to complain or cause anybody any problems.....I just want them not to be flippant about my privacy or feelings. I want them to understand that things they are doing are causing me and my family unnecessary stress (one of the things I'm trying to avoid).

[Naomi_at_app Volunteer]

Hi Littleloulou

I can really understand that discomfort with not wanting to complain but feeling your trust has been eroded. I guess I’d say that honest feedback to help a service improve and understand the impact of their practice on your feelings and interactions with the service is very different from the negative connotations we might associate with the word ‘complaint’

How would it feel for you put some feedback and reflections on your experience in to writing for the service manager (or for clinicians who have worked with you directly)?

Our peer support staff are always happy to chat privately if you’d like to talk things through - I’m on leave until 18th August but if you email [e-mail] a member of the team can get back to you.

It’s completely understandable to feel quite vulnerable when you hoped for high quality specialist care and you have feel let down despite the good intentions of the team. If you need a chat we’re here

N xx

[Littleloulou]

Thanks Naomi_at_app,

I really appreciate your understanding and support. I'll definitely be giving them honest feedback the next time I meet with members of the team. I really hope the feedback will help others in future so that they don't experience the same problems/issues that I've encountered so far.

In all honesty I also feel annoyed that I have to speak up to improve things because surely there should be guidelines and procedures in place to avoid these things happening......and if that's the case why does it take things going wrong and people like me having to point out the obvious problem and offer solutions. I feel let down. Maybe the problem is that so far I haven't know who to voice my grievances with but I will ask that question too. I will definitely try to get things down on paper, good suggestion.

Thanks again for your help and advice. Hope you enjoy your annual leave!