"Inadequate" celebrity mental health clinic ordered to make improvements

A private mental healthcare clinic that treated celebrity patients such as Lily Allen, Johnny Depp and Amy Winehouse has been ordered to make improvements amid concerns for the safety of patients at risk of suicide or self-harm.

The Priory hospital, in Roehampton, south-west London, is occupying a Grade II-listed building and is known as Priory Healthcare group’s “first and most well-known hospital”.

The hospital is best known for treating celebrities, particularly for drug addiction, and has been described as the British equivalent of the Betty Ford Clinic in the US.

The list of well-known patients includes songwriter Pete Doherty, former footballer Paul Gascoigne and Lloyds Banking Group chief executive António Horta-Osório.

The Priory treats a wide range of mental health problems including depression, anxiety and addictions. Some of the facilities on offer to private patients include an on-site restaurant, a gym with a personal trainer and housekeeping for a number of the private en-suite rooms.

But the Care Quality Commission (CQC) gave the hospital a rating of “requires improvement” following an inspection. The regulator issued the provider with a warning notice after inspectors rated the hospital as “inadequate” for providing safe care.

But Priory Healthcare, which runs the hospital, said it was “disappointed” the regulator decided to re-inspect its facility in the middle of a £1.2m improvement programme.

The CQC argued that the hospital was not providing safe levels of staffing to meet the needs of their patients.

The inspection report reads: “There remained high vacancy rates for nurses across the hospital and particularly on the eating disorder service. This resulted in high use of bank and agency staff and there were also a significant number of shifts with below safe staffing levels.

“Records indicated that there were more incidents on shifts with insufficient staff on Priory Court, the eating disorders unit for children and adolescents. There had been 95 incidents on Priory Court in the six months prior to the inspection.

“Following the inspection the provider sent us revised figures indicating a higher level of staffing than indicated at the time of the inspection. We undertook enforcement action against the provider, serving a warning notice regarding staffing levels.”

The regulator launched a re-inspection of the premises in October last year after it highlighted concerns during a visit in March 2016.

It said that in addition to concerns about staffing levels, inspectors concluded that the hospital environment, particularly on the acute wards, remained unsafe for patients at risk of suicide or self-harm.

Inspectors rated the trust as “good” for being effective and caring but “requires improvement” on being responsive.

Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector for mental health, said: “When we inspected the Priory Hospital in October 2016, we were very concerned about the safety of patients at risk of suicide or self-harm.

“The hospital must ensure it can meet the needs of patients they choose to admit whilst improvements to staffing and the environment take place.

“We did however find some improvements and noted that the provider had implemented a pre-admission risk assessment.

“The wards also provided a comprehensive range of psychological therapies, including dialectical behavioural therapy, mindfulness, and family therapy. Occupational therapists and dietitians facilitated activities and discussion groups.”

Commenting on the inspection, Dr Sylvia Tang, chief executive of Priory Healthcare, said: “Roehampton is a safe hospital providing high quality care and treatment and we remain fully committed to making improvements for the benefit of all of our patients.

“Our £1.2m improvement programme at Roehampton is being led by a new management team and includes trialling a state-of-the-art patient monitoring system.

“It is disappointing that we have been re-inspected part-way through this programme when there were works in progress which have now been completed.

“Similarly, we question CQC’s findings in relation to staffing: our rotas show that appropriate staff-patient ratios have been maintained and, over the last year, we have reduced the vacancy rate for nurses by more than 50%, despite a national shortage of nurses.”

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

"Inadequate" celebrity mental health clinic ordered to make improvements

What makes celebrity meltdowns entertainment instead of tragedy? | David Ferguson

When I was in my 20s, I remember my therapist patiently listening to me complain about how out-of-my-depth I often felt around other gay men. I was asking her why they always seemed so effortlessly aloof and cool, whereas I was – and to some extent, still am – a slobbering golden retriever of a person, quivering with eagerness to be your new best friend.

“You’ll waste a lot of time and spoil a lot of happiness comparing your insides to other people’s outsides,” she told me.

I think about this a lot when I see famous people – rock stars, celebrities, politicians – going into meltdown mode. Trainwreck TV is one of our culture’s most avid pleasures. In the words of Edina Monsoon from Absolutely Fabulous, “It’s the only blood sport they haven’t banned, darling.”

Right now, everyone is waiting to see what the next eruption from Kanye West will be now that he’s out of the hospital after months – some would say years – of erratic behavior, bizarre concert spectacles and public meltdowns. It’s almost expected, since the Grammy nominations were announced this week and West was again shut out of the major categories.

A few years ago the spectacle du jour was Amanda Bynes, and before that, Britney Spears when she shaved her head and ended up under psychiatric care.

We’ve shaken our heads and tutted over the breakdowns of Mariah Carey and Courtney Love, Amy Winehouse and Gary Busey, Katt Williams and Dave Chappelle, Lindsay Lohan and Anna Nicole Smith – any celebrities who have had the misfortune to exhibit symptoms of mental illness while living in the public eye.

We take a certain sanctimonious pleasure in these people’s public disintegration and show shockingly little compassion, as though their wildly successful careers and personal fortunes make their pain more acceptable than that of mere mortals.

If a random woman we don’t know starts babbling nonsense and getting hysterical while we’re out shopping, it’s tragic. We avert our eyes. We tell our families when we get home how unsettling and upsetting it was. But when Spears does it, it’s a Rolling Stone cover story that we consume with the eagerness of kids tearing into a bag of candy.

It’s the same mentality that allows a racist troll like Milo Yiannopoulos to airily wave away the steaming, reeking mountain of harassment his followers and supporters firehosed at Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones, mostly on Twitter. Leslie Jones is a rich and famous actress; who cares if people say nasty things about her on the internet?

At what point do we stop valuing celebrities’ humanity?

Is it an income-level thing? Kanye West has got a lot of money. He’s one of the most well-known performers on the planet who isn’t Beyoncé or Beyoncé-adjacent. He has broken paradigms and yes, over-extended his brand, as it were, in a couple of areas, but he’s also a creative young person with a young family under tremendous pressure who lost his beloved mother nine years ago.

He has written openly about his love for liquor, cocaine and other intoxicants. It does not take a tremendous amount of imagination to piece together what may have happened here to a stressed-out artist in pain.

Let’s pretend for a moment that it isn’t Kanye West, but Keith West, who you knew in college who works for a life insurance company now. What if his mother died in surgery and he began a multi-year downward spiral?

Would you be gawking if Keith got placed on involuntary hold in a psychiatric unit? Would you be sharing links about Keith on Twitter and Facebook and marveling that someone could become such a mess?

Kanye West may be, as President Obama once said, “a jackass” from time to time. But he’s also still a person.

Millions of dollars in the bank doesn’t mean anything when you want your mom and she’s gone, I suspect, any more than the significantly less princely sum in my own checking account does. You can’t buy five more minutes to be with your dead mom for any amount of money, large or small.

So, maybe the next time you start to click on that Perez Hilton link about whichever celebrity’s mind has most recently hit the big bug-zapper, take a second. Ask yourself how you’d feel if your life’s most humiliating, confused, disoriented moment was out there for public amusement.

If the person suffering at the other end of that hyperlink was Keith and not Kanye, would you still click it?

What makes celebrity meltdowns entertainment instead of tragedy? | David Ferguson

Britain"s Youngest Carers, Channel 4, assessment: "more than a celebrity endorsement"

When six-12 months-old Ty-Reese handed his mom a glass of water for her to take her drugs, she stated: “Thank you, little one.” He replied: “You’re welcome, Mummy.” After this formal small exchange, he went into the kitchen to load the washing machine, for he had already spent 18 months of his lifestyle helping to be a carer for his mom, who has kidney difficulties and arthritis, and is fitted with a pacemaker.

Officially there are 200,000 kids who are classified as “carers”, based mostly on the 2011 census, but Professor Saul Becker, a Nottingham sociologist, informed the camera that a more correct variety is nearer 700,000, 1 in twelve of all young children in the nation. He was asked about this by Oritsé Williams, very best recognized as a member of the former boy-band JLS. The reason he was presenting Britain’s Youngest Carers (Channel four) is that, from the age of 12, he cared for his own mom, Sonia, who has multiple sclerosis.

Williams wisely explained, “I’m usually suspicious of celebrity involvement” in such complex problems, and he had no illusion that a magic wand could be waved to save schoolchildren investing 40 hours or far more caring for a mother or father on best of their scientific studies. He offered a literal shoulder to cry on for much more than a single youngster in this brief documentary, and repeated that one of the most troubling troubles is their obtaining no one to share their emotions with. Kids are even bullied at college if they reveal their parents’ dependence.

A single, Josh, aged 13, helps his mom and sister seem soon after his terminally ill father. A serious youth, he also goes to Air Cadets, which he finds “takes your thoughts off it” but he has told no one there of his dedication at property. “He has to gradually watch his father die,” Williams commented, “something which no 1 of any age should have to do, and not at 13.” That sounds a sympathetic factor to say, but it can not be real. Everyone has to see their dad and mom die, slowly or quickly, unless they die first. Josh must tread a challenging street, and 1 perhaps unnecessarily lonely, but, for all his hidden anguish, he would seem to be doing it bravely. What’s the substitute?

One particular substitute is the chance that minor Ty-Reese’s mom fears: that, now he has a social worker allotted to him, he will, when she turns into even significantly less in a position to look after herself, be “taken into care”. That, in our day, is a prospect as chilling as the workhouse after was.

Britain"s Youngest Carers, Channel 4, assessment: "more than a celebrity endorsement"

Vandana Shiva, Anti-GMO Celebrity: "Eco Goddess" Or Harmful Fabulist?

Cami Ryan, contributing columnist with the Genetic Literacy Task, co-authored this report.

Vandana Shiva is a prominent Indian-born environmentalist who has emerged as one particular of the world’s most prominent critics of typical agriculture and biotechnology. In the most current signal of her iconic status, earlier this month, Beloit School in Wisconsin conferred on her a prestigious honor as the Weissberg Chair in International Studies, calling her a “one-lady movement for peace, sustainability and social justice.”

Whether or not that accurately describes Shiva is debatable—there seems to be a sizable gap among her self-representations and the topics she claims to be an expert on. Even so her status as a celebrity activist is not in query. Shiva’s unbridled opposition to GMOs has manufactured her a preferred in liberal and environmental circles. She hopscotches the globe, producing regular appearances at anti-GMO rallies, on college campuses and on lecture tours, most recently final week in Costa Rica.

Shiva has been referred to as a an “eco warrior goddess” by the e-Zine Punk Rock Permaculture, a “rock star in the worldwide battle in excess of genetically modified seeds” by journalist Bill Moyers and a “global sustainability expert” by the University of Kentucky. Time Magazine named her an “environmental hero” in 2003 and Forbes  identified her as a single of the Seven Most Powerful Feminists on the Globe in 2010. She has a lot more than 23,000 followers on Twitter and 43,000 on Facebook.

Shiva is possibly greatest known for claiming that the introduction of genetically modified cotton seeds in India has led to mass genocide by bad farmers seduced by the ‘false promise’ of GMOs.

“270,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide given that Monsanto entered the Indian seed marketplace,” she has said. “It’s genocide.”

That’s a exceptional claim, and if real it is a tragedy of staggering proportions. If it is not, it’s demagogic. What are the facts?

Shiva’s celebrity and her claims

Vandana Shiva was born in the valley of Dehradun in India in 1952. Educated in her homeland, she ultimately pursued graduate scientific studies in Canada, receiving an MA at Guelph and a PhD at the University of Western Ontario. A dedicated activist, she founded Navdanya – which means “Nine Seeds” – a lot more than two decades ago. In accordance to its web site, its organizational mandate is “to protect the diversity and integrity of residing assets, specifically native seed, and to market natural farming and fair trade.” Under her guidance Navdanya has evolved into a nationwide movement.

Shiva is an energetic campaigner towards globalization and a vocal critic of agricultural genetic engineering—GMOs. She has written more than twenty books. In Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest and Water Wars, she examined the social, financial and ecological fees of corporate-led globalization. The Violence of Green Revolution and Monocultures of the Thoughts challenged what she referred to as the dominant paradigm of non-sustainable, reductionist Green Revolution agriculture.

Numerous prominent intellectuals herald her as a forward-considering scientist and skilled in genetic engineering. When Beloit conferred its honorarium on her, and in accompanying news releases and the website announcement touting her choice, it prominently noted her “PhD in nuclear physics,” calling her “a recognized expert on agriculture and biotechnology.”

Are people claims accurate?

Shiva believes so. “ I am also a scientist… a Quantum Physicist”, she writes on her Navdanya site. The speakers bureau that represents her identifies her as “a skilled physicist.” Hundreds of organizations and prominent journalists, from universities to Bill Moyers to National Geographic (which referred to her as a “nuclear physicist turned agro-ecologist”), have represented her that way.

But people representations are incorrect. In accordance to the University of Western Ontario, in which she received her PhD, her doctorate is not in the discipline of physics, as she claims, but in philosophy. It centered on the extremely technical and typically politicized debate in excess of a central notion in physics recognized as Bells’ Theorem, which has been referred to as the “most profound” theory in science.

Maybe foreshadowing her present contentious views about modern day agriculture, Shiva concluded that quantum mechanics in physics was philosophically invalid and factually doubtful. The major thesis of quantum mechanics that she challenged has given that been confirmed by experimental physics, which means that her thesis stands at odds with factual reality. Independent of the top quality of her philosophical investigation, it is a substantive leap to go from earning a PhD in the Philosophy of Science to self-identifying as a “scientist,” “nuclear physicist” or “quantum physicist”—the a variety of ways she refers to herself.

Shiva also claims to have written much more than 300 papers—a factoid echoed in almost each and every report or news release about her, which includes on Beloit’s website.  A query of Thomson Reuter’s World wide web of Science (analysis platform for data in the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities) returns only 42 information of peer reviewed papers or publications authored by Shiva given that 1980.

Vandana Shiva, Anti-GMO Celebrity: "Eco Goddess" Or Harmful Fabulist?

The Massive Enterprise Of Celebrity Rehab

The list of celebs who checked themselves into rehab in 2013—and let the public know about it—isn’t a quick a single, among them Josh Brolin, Zac Efron, and maybe most famously Lindsay Lohan. Illustrating there is no specific “type,” others included ABC News co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas, who entered treatment for alcohol addiction in October Hairspray director Adam Shankman actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and former child star Amanda Bynes. In the final handful of weeks, singer Ke$ ha announced she’d be coming into a center for support with an eating disorder.

Utilized to be that individuals battling addictions—famous or not—might keep their need for support underneath wraps, quietly coming into and exiting centers with out anyone knowing. But as the chronicling of celebrity lives turns into ever far more vigilant, their adventures in recovery have grown more public. This could be a very good factor: Enhanced publicity and conversation could aid get rid of the lingering stigma surrounding addiction, and therapy of this kind of, helping much more individuals comprehend that addiction is a significant concern that doesn’t discriminate based mostly on income, social standing, seems, or anything else. Definitely, celebrities increase the profile not only of the certain institution they attend but the notion of recovery in general.

On the other hand, the Hollywood promotion of addiction remedy could serve to normalize, potentially even glamorize, the idea of living to excess, and maybe excuse the reckless habits that typically lands celebrities in rehab in the 1st spot. Rehab can be employed as a mea culpa, for the well-known and the non-popular: a way to make amends or smooth over a predicament while also, handily, earning praise for “dealing with their demons.” Efron reportedly admitted himself right after failing to show up for perform filming his upcoming film, Neighbors. R&ampB singer Chris Brown entered rehab for anger management in October following reportedly punching a guy in the face. Going to rehab can perform to take a bit of the heat off. And with the notable exception of some, there frequently would seem to be couple of lasting consequences—nothing, genuinely, to lose—for individuals who overuse alcohol and medicines, or mismanage anger, in their skilled lives: this kind of recovering addicts as Robert Downey Jr., Drew Barrymore, and Robin Williams have maintained glorious careers, and, well, men and women hold buying Chris Brown’s music. That’s not always the case—the second possibility (or third, or fourth)—for typical folks. But it can be effortless to believe otherwise.

In fact, how seriously celebrities consider rehab might impact how critically “regular” men and women do as well. Celebrities who flit in and out of rehab might be struggling privately, but the message the public receives in those cases—enough information to know that a celebrity is back in a system, but not ample to know why—is too frequently that rehab is a place to go each time you feel the need to have to get away for a bit. Brown, for example, stayed only two weeks. For those celebrities who are not dealing with real addictions or looking to make true change—but as an alternative in search of a fast and straightforward way to apologize, or possibly a spike in media attention—the message will get muddled.

Undoubtedly, for a lot of celebrities, revealing a journey to recovery is far more of a necessity than a want to be “open and honest” with the rest of the world. It is usually much better to be the one particular to tell the story than have it told for you. Still, the motivation for telling the story, and for getting into recovery, matters, as does proof of a actual drive to get nicely, and much more openness and honesty would go a prolonged way in the direction of making sure that their influence over how the rest of view rehab stays optimistic. The PR reps who often announce a celebrity’s admission into a program typically ask the public to afford the star privacy (even individuals who may well have been dancing on tabletops just weeks before). It is challenging to see actual soul-seeking in that.

Comply with Peggy on Twitter and Facebook and understand much more about Peggy at www.peggydrexler.com

The Massive Enterprise Of Celebrity Rehab

Celebrity Wildlife: Just doing work it out

When exercising these days, what you put on is almost as essential as what you do. Some individuals discover it difficult to set foot on a treadmill with out first letting their social-media following know all about it, and if the globe understands you are at the health club, you had greater make positive you seem the portion ahead of the Twitter trolls get to work. The Chancellor, George Osborne, shows impressively unreconstructed dress sense when he measures out of his suits and into his working gear. As an election approaches, let’s hope he does not come to feel the need to have to adjust. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in operating shorts is one particular issue, but in a baseball cap or lifting weights – or the two – is really one more. – Sian Ranscombe

Action men: Lewis Hamilton shared this photograph of himself trying to keep F1-match by lifting weights on Twitter in August. Hamilton is often joined at the gym by his canine Roscoe.

Image: Xposurephotos.com

Celebrity Wildlife: Just doing work it out

Celebrity Wildlife: Juice

If you are still stuck on the sofa in a turkey-induced coma, promising yourself a healthful new begin although cramming those final couple of toffee pennies into your mouth, then be warned: the average Brit puts on 6lb in between Christmas Eve and the new yr. Hollywood’s reply to a spare tyre is the juice diet regime. Even typically camera-shy celebs are keen to pledge their support and be photographed with their cartons of green sludge. Model-of-the-second Rosie Huntington-Whiteley credits her streamlined figure to a ‘delicious green juice’ every single morning her boyfriend Jason Statham was reportedly consuming only brown rice, spinach and green juices final year, even though slimming down for a part – mealtimes at their house sound entertaining. Probably getting a sweetie-loving mortal isn’t so poor soon after all – Jessica Salter.

Green goddesses: Stephanie Leigh Schlund, star of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, has a thirst for something green following a run in LA in October. ‘I consume quite clean – a whole lot of vegetables and higher protein,’ the actress has stated.

Image: PacificCoastNews

Celebrity Wildlife: Juice