Reading about women’s mental health throughout history, I began to understand myself

While it hurts to read about these women’s pain, worse still is knowing what isn’t written. The mistreatment, the lack of understanding.

Read newspaper piece here 

The Library & Knowledge Services will be purchasing the book in due course

Parents share diary of daughter's mental health battle

Family 'thrown into a world we didn't understand'  BBC News. Read news piece here

How it feels to be hospitalised for your mental health

Three women share their stories of life on a psychiatric ward. Read magazine article here

How Does Cyberbullying Impact Young Psychiatric Inpatients?

Cyberbullying can magnify symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in young inpatients at an adolescent psychiatric hospital, according to a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Click here to read PsychCentral article

Service user experience in adult mental health services

This quality standard covers improving the experience of people using adult NHS mental health services. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement. Read NICE guidance here

Everything seemed perfect - then my dad took his own life

Paul McGregor says showing vulnerability is a strength and that conversations about mental health should be far more common. Click here to read news piece

Public Satisfaction With The NHS And Social Care In 2018: Results From The British Social Attitudes Survey

This report, written with Nuffield Trust, shows that public satisfaction with the NHS overall continued to fall in 2018. The four main reasons people gave for being satisfied with the NHS overall were: the quality of care; the fact that the NHS is free at the point of use; the range of services and treatments available; and the attitudes and behaviour of NHS staff. The four main reasons people gave for being dissatisfied with the NHS overall were: long waiting times; staff shortages; a lack of funding; and money being wasted. Read full report here

Young, Alone And Miles Away From Mum: Life In A Mental Health Unit Four Hours From Home

Katie Scott was just a few months shy of her 18th birthday when she was sent to stay in an inpatient unit four hours drive from her home town. It was already a difficult time for the student who was trying to recover from anorexia, anxiety and severe depression – and now at some distance from her family. Read Huffington Post article here

New CQC survey finds that people with mental health difficulties have poorer than average hospital experience

Today’s survey from CQC once again demonstrates that people with mental health difficulties have poorer than average experiences of being in hospital. This is despite the fact that they have higher levels of physical ill health and a 15-20 year shorter life expectancy. We must ensure that no one is treated less well because they have a mental health problem, including in A&E. See Centre for Mental Health article here

The risks to care quality and staff wellbeing of an NHS system under pressure

This report, written by the Picker Institute, in conjunction with The King's Fund, considers the relationships between the self-reported experiences and wellbeing of NHS staff, measures of workforce pressures in the health system, and patients’ experiences of their care. It uncovers striking associations between NHS staff and patients’ experiences in hospitals and NHS trusts’ reliance on agency health care workers.

Memokath-051 stent for ureteric obstruction [MTG 35]

New: Medical technologies guidance


The case for adopting Memokath‑051 for treating ureteric obstruction is partially supported by the evidence. The evidence is limited but suggests that in selected cases, Memokath‑051 is effective at relieving ureteric obstruction and improving quality of life. When inserted by trained clinicians (see section 4.8) and in appropriate patients (see section 1.2), Memokath‑051 is associated with equivalent success rates and a better patient experience compared with double‑J stents. Using Memokath‑051 may also reduce the number of stent replacements needed compared with using double‑J stents.


The case for adopting Memokath‑051 for treating ureteric obstruction is partially supported by the evidence. The evidence is limited but suggests that in selected cases, Memokath‑051 is effective at relieving ureteric obstruction and improving quality of life. When inserted by trained clinicians (see section 4.8) and in appropriate patients (see section 1.2), Memokath‑051 is associated with equivalent success rates and a better patient experience compared with double‑J stents. Using Memokath‑051 may also reduce the number of stent replacements needed compared with using double‑J stents.

2017 survey of women's experiences of maternity care

This CQC report finds that overall women reported positive experiences of maternity care over 2017 and  there were small incremental improvements in results across almost every question. Whilst there have been general improvements overall, the results highlight the need for better communication and greater patient choice.

Fewer hospital appointments missed thanks to one simple idea

Going to the hospital for an appointment should be a simple process. But if you have an impairment and services aren’t set up to meet your needs, that’s not always the case.

People who are deaf in Dudley told their local Healthwatch that going for medical appointments was sometimes difficult for them. They talked about their fear of missing appointments because they couldn’t hear their names being called in busy clinics, and their struggles to communicate with staff.

Healthwatch Dudley brought a group of deaf people together to find out more about their experiences and what could be done to make things better. The group shared how the risk of missing appointments was making deaf people feel extremely anxious. It was suggested that they could be given vibrating and flashing pagers to let them know when the doctor was ready to see them. The Trust embraced the idea and pagers have now been introduced to hospital waiting areas across Dudley borough and are being used not only for deaf patients, but also for those with other sensory and physical impairments.

Six areas Healthwatch wants NHS England to focus on in 2018

Using the views you have shared, find out what six areas Healthwatch has told the Government that NHS England should focus on over the next year to improve health and social care for people.

1. Improving public involvement in changes to local services
2. Using people’s experiences of leaving hospital as a way of measuring how well services are working together
3. Demonstrating how learning from feedback is improving care
4. Increasing focus on the evaluation of mental health services
5. Shifting the focus of NHS targets to take greater account of people's experiences
6. Tackling access issues in NHS dentistry

Are patients satisfied with the head and neck skin cancer service? An evaluation of outpatient services with a review of published reports

British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery December 2017 Volume 55, Issue 10, Pages 1018–1023 

Scientific publications place much emphasis on postoperative outcomes such as recurrence, but little attention to patients’ satisfaction. The purpose of this evaluation was to find out patients’ reported outcomes after their initial consultation, treatment, and follow-up appointments for non-melanoma skin cancer of the head and neck.

UHCW Research: V. Petrosyan

A pilot randomized trial of meniscal allograft transplantation versus personalized physiotherapy for patients with a symptomatic meniscal deficient knee compartment

Bone Joint J. 2018 Jan;100-B(1):56-63. doi: 10.1302/0301-620X.100B1.BJJ-2017-0918.R1.

Meniscal allograft transplantation is undertaken to improve pain and function in patients with a symptomatic meniscal deficient knee compartment. While case series have shown improvements in patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), its efficacy has not been rigorously evaluated. This study aimed to compare PROMs in patients having meniscal transplantation with those having personalized physiotherapy at 12 months.

UHCW Research: Smith NA, Wright, D, Spalding, T and Thompson, P

Children and young people's survey 2016

The CQC has published what it claims is the largest survey of the quality of care for under-16s. More than 34,000 patients and their parents and carers took part in the research.

Overall, experiences were mostly positive – 81% of parents and carers rated care at 8 out of 10 or better - but findings also identified a number of areas for improvement. These were around involving children more in decision-making, being treated on age appropriate wards and having enough things to do while in hospital

The final injustice: variation in end of life care in England

This report from Macmillan Cancer Care provides an insight into the experience of cancer patients' final months and years. It finds that cancer patients approaching the end of their life face repeat emergency visits and the situation is worse for patients who are most socioeconomically disadvantaged. The report highlights the variation in patient experience for people dying of cancer and the need for improved access to care and support in the community.

The Fifteen Steps Challenge – Quality from a patient’s perspective: A toolkit for clinics and outpatient settings

This document from NHS England, focuses on clinics and outpatient settings, is part of a suite of toolkits for The Fifteen Steps Challenge, which helps to explore patient experience and are a way of involving patients, carers and families in quality assurance processes.

Connected: Improving the Patient-Physician Relationship – And Health Care Itself – Through Communication

This paper from the Beryl Institute explores the value and impact of patient-physician communication in health care.