Rathbone Hospital Rehabilitation Ward Listening Event Report - November 2023

Introduction

A small team of Healthwatch Liverpool staff visited Rathbone hospital’s Rehabilitation ward on 9^th November 2023. The ward has 30 ensuite bedrooms including some bedsits with their own kitchen. 

We spoke with 7 patients in total. We used a questionnaire with 6 patients to have semi-structured conversations. One patient preferred to stop the conversation after the first few questions. We spoke with another patient who showed us around the unit and showed us their bedroom. 

At the end of the visit we spoke with staff to share an overview of what patients had told us and some of our observations. 

Many thanks to the patients who were willing to speak to us, and to the staff who gave us their time and support in arranging and facilitating our visit.

Key findings

• The ward felt calm and organized
• Nearly everyone we spoke to praised the staff and the care they received
• There was mixed feedback about the available food and portion sizes
• Most people liked the activities but some said they would like more things to do at weekends and evenings
• Nearly everyone we spoke to said they felt safe and supported at Rathbone Hospital
• There was less positive feedback about some other Mersey Care inpatient units.

Conclusion

We can’t guarantee that the feedback we received was representative of everyone on the unit as we did not speak with many people. 

However, the feedback we did receive was generally very positive about the ward, especially about the staff and the care and treatment. People we spoke to highlighted that they felt safe and felt they were getting therapeutic and other support when they needed it. 

People told us this had not always been the case in other Mersey Care services; several mentioned not having felt as safe where they had been prior to Rathbone hospital, although staff had tried. 

There were some areas for improvement too. This included the provision of activities at evenings and weekends. Several people said they would like improvements to the food provided. 

Ensuring that individual reasonable adjustments are discussed and consistently implemented with people to improve communication was also raised as an area for improvement. 

We shared most of this with staff on the day of our visit, and we have added recommendations below for the service’s consideration.

Recommendations

1. We received a lot of positive feedback about the rehabilitation ward. Some of the feedback made specific comparisons with other Mersey Care adult inpatient mental health wards. We know that some of the other wards mentioned by patients have dormitories and facilities that are not as up-to-date as those at Rathbone, and are due to be closed once the new building on the Mossley Hill site opens. We are not able to comment on whether there are also differences in staffing levels at different sites, but we assume that patients are typically in better health during their stay at Rathbone than they may be on the other inpatient wards that were mentioned. However, we recommend that other Mersey Care adult inpatient wards see if there is positive learning to be had from the practices on the rehabilitation ward which are well-received by patients.
2. Arrange more activities with patients during weekends and after 8pm.
3. Regularly discuss the food options with patients, and explore ways to improve and adapt it.
4. Implement a system to ensure that staff are aware when there is someone at the main door to the unit waiting to come in.
5. Reasonable adjustments and Deaf aware communication: check with individual patients what their preferred method of communication is and ensure staff are aware and consistent in implementing this (e.g. the example mentioned of typing text on a phone when there are no BSL interpreters available). 
6. Ensure all staff have been trained to have a good understanding of autism/a good level of autism awareness.
7. We recognize that the lack of appropriate move-on accommodation and the difficulties with finding housing via Property Pool are issues that are outside of Mersey Care’s control.  However, we would recommend that easily accessible information about housing options and where to find support is made available to those patients who need it.