Author Joanna Cannon: why I’m going back to the psychiatric wards

Joanna Cannon’s to-do list for next month includes attending the British Book Industry Awards in which her bestselling debut novel has been shortlisted, and pouring tea for people with dementia and their carers in a village hall.

Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, who quit psychiatry more than two years ago to concentrate on writing, is returning to the NHS as a volunteer with Arts for Health. Its programme, run by South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust, brings creative arts to patients. Tea-making aside, she is keen to help patients understand their own life story through “reading for wellbeing” groups and creative writing.

Cannon once retreated to read for two weeks solid after her mental health deteriorated while working as a junior doctor, and she started writing “for therapy” on a blog. “I wrote that blog to understand myself more,” she explains. “If you read some of the early entries they’re all full of doom and gloom because I was trying to process the things I was seeing as a junior doctor. Not by talking directly about them, obviously, because that would be unethical, but by talking about my reaction to things. I think reading and writing is the best way of understanding your narrative from a safe position… reading is also an escape more than anything else. When I had that two weeks off and read books I felt as though I’d left my own life for a bit and just enjoyed being somewhere else, and I think that’s important for patients. Also creative writing will give them an outlet to talk about how they feel without actually having to talk about how they feel.”

The only child of a plumber and a giftshop owner, Cannon grew up in Derbyshire and left school at 15 with one O-level. It wasn’t until her 30s that she took her A-levels, spurred by her resolve to become a doctor. She qualified in her early 40s but became very stressed during her first stint as a junior doctor in general medicine.

“I thought, ‘yes, I can do this, it’s fine, I know what to do,’” she recalls of her first job – to certify a death certificate. “But when I got there it really impacted on me being in the room with relatives and talking to them, so I just went to the loo and cried. And I thought, ‘that’s fine, this is my first time and it will get easier’. But it didn’t, it got worse. I spent my whole weekends going over and over everything that happened.”

At the time, she told no one how mentally unwell she felt. “It’s very difficult to talk to a consultant you don’t really know that well and admit that you’re struggling, because everyone else appears to be coping … and the consultants clearly cope … so to hold your hand up and say ‘actually, I can’t deal with this’ – you feel weak and stupid and a failure that all this money has been poured into your education to get you to this point and you’ve squandered it by not coping.”

She lauds Prince William and Prince Harry for talking about mental health as part of the Heads Together campaign. “People say the stigma is lifting, but I don’t think it is. You talk to somebody with schizophrenia or bipolar or depression or anxiety and I don’t think they would think it was lifting. The NHS does try and encourage people to talk more, but you are only reflecting the general attitude that it’s just too difficult to admit to it sometimes. I’ve so much admiration for Prince Harry. It’s amazing to have such a massive public platform and get on that platform and speak about something like that.”

Cannon is all too aware that encouraging people to speak up needs to be matched by services to meet need. As the general election looms, this former NHS worker echoes the call for more funding so that mental health services don’t “bend and break”.

“The lack of funding is unbelievable. You will get people admitted as an emergency and the only bed available for them is 200 miles away. And these people are perhaps psychotic, so being taken to somewhere they don’t know, and looked after by people they don’t know, is not going to be very helpful to their recovery. In community mental health, you get community psychiatric nurses who have got hundreds of patients on their caseload; how are they supposed to spend quality time with all of them? They can’t possibly do it. And they burn themselves out and they leave. It’s tragic, really.”

Improved investment in the wider social fabric is also needed to promote good mental health, she argues. “One of the biggest risk factors for mental health is social isolation, so now where do people go for that community? Where do they go to socialise when you are cutting all these services in the community?”

For Cannon, the stress she experienced in general medicine evaporated when she joined a psychiatric team. It felt like “coming home”, she says. “I felt truly useful for the first time in my life.”

Working with mental health patients was also the inspiration for her novel, which is about prejudice towards people who are a little bit different. It took just nine months to complete – a feat accomplished by writing at 4am before her shifts began and in NHS car parks during lunch breaks – and has sold more than 100,000 paperback copies in the UK.

She secured a six-figure deal for her second novel, due out next January, and will be working on her third when not volunteering in her old professional stomping ground. “Every day in psychiatry I felt as though I’d made a difference to somebody, I’d made them feel a little bit better about life – and I miss that feeling,” she says of her decision to return to the NHS. “It’s not at all altruistic me going back on to the wards because I get as much benefit out of it as they hopefully will get out of me. I love the people, I love hearing the stories, I love the teamwork. Writing is very isolating sometimes. I miss the camaraderie of being on the wards and of being with a team.”

Has she kept the door open to being a doctor again? “I would never say never, but if I could do this,volunteer and do my writing, that would be perfect – the best of both worlds.”

Curriculum Vitae

Age: 40s.

Lives: Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

Education: Denstone College, Uttoxeter; University of Leicester Medical School (graduated 2010 with a degree in medicine).

Career: 2014-present: author, 2010-2014: NHS doctor specialising in psychiatry, South Staffordshire & Shropshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust; bar maid, kennel maid, pizza delivery expert.

Public life: Volunteer, Arts for Health (South Staffordshire & Shropshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust)

Interests: Reading, walking my dog through the fields, medical humanities, the bridge between art and science.

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is published by Harper Collins (£7.99). To order a copy for £6.15, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846

Author Joanna Cannon: why I’m going back to the psychiatric wards

Hospital closes two wards after flu outbreak

An outbreak of flu has left 60 patients ill and forced the closure of two wards at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge.

People are being urged to stay away after a surge in admissions due to flu this week and a further outbreak within the hospital.

Two wards are shut and three others have bays that are affected, a Cambridge University hospitals spokesman said.

He added: “There are a high number of flu cases across the hospital and our emergency department is already at capacity.

“We are urging people to keep visiting to a minimum and not to bring children on site.

“If you are suffering with flu-like symptoms, please check with your GP, local pharmacist or NHS 111.”

Influenza is a viral illness that is especially common in winter and is spread by coughing and sneezing.

Many people can have a flu vaccine free on the NHS, but as a viral infection it cannot be treated by antibiotics.

More details soon…

Hospital closes two wards after flu outbreak

Revealed: dozens of children still treated on adult psychiatric wards

Dozens of children and young people with mental health problems are still being treated on wards containing adults with sometimes severe psychiatric problems despite ministers having supposedly outlawed the practice in 2010, the Guardian can reveal.

Mental health campaigners condemned the persistence of the problem and said it was “completely unacceptable” for vulnerable minors to be subjected to what many find a “terrifying” experience. The Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb, who was the minister for care, including mental health care, in the coalition government, said putting children on adult wards was “scandalous” and must be ended at once.

Official figures from mental health hospitals collated by NHS Digital, the health service’s statistical arm, show that in July 47 children and young people aged 17 or under were treated on adult psychiatric wards. Of those 21 were aged 17, another 18 were 16-year-olds and the other eight were aged 15 or under. There is particular anxiety that under-16s are still receiving treatment in adult settings as the government made clear six years ago that this should never happen.

Gordon Brown’s Labour administration placed the “age-appropriate environment duty” on NHS mental heath trusts in April 2010 in a bid to end a practice that parents, charities, MPs and the children’s commissioner for England had criticised as unpleasant and traumatising for children.

“The simple truth is that this has to end completely. It’s scandalous that the practice continues. It is unsafe and wrong. There must be a clear and unequivocal commitment from this government to eradicate the practice completely without delay”, said Lamb.

The duty legally obliges managers of mental health units, under section 131A of the Mental Health Act 1983, to ensure that “the patient’s environment in the hospital is suitable having regard to his age (subject to his needs)”. While it allows 16- and 17-year-olds to still be looked after on adult wards occasionally in “exceptional circumstances”, such as if they need to be admitted as an emergency, it forbids totally under-16s ever being treated there.

The figures, which the Guardian requested from NHS Digital, cover January to July this year. A total of 39 under-18s were treated on adult wards in that time, though some may have shown up in the figure for more than one month, NHS Digital said. One hundred and thirty 17-year-olds and 90 children aged 16 were also treated during that time. If the same trend is maintained in the rest of the year that would result in a total of 446 under-18s being treated there, which would the highest for many years. A total of 391 children were treated in such wards in 2014-15.

Under-18s spent 1,938 days on adult mental health wards between them during April and June, almost double the 1,102 days they spent there from January to March. Most of those occurred in the north of England, which saw such bed days soar from 35 in the first three months of the year to a massive 1,405 in the second quarter. In that same period there were 225 such bed days in the Midlands and East of England (down 650 the previous quarter), 185 in London (down from 220) and 125 in the south of England (down from 195), NHS Digital’s data show.

Responding to the figures, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said the number of children in psychiatric wards had fallen by 60% since 2010 and such places should be used rarely. He is set to make a major speech on children’s mental health care on Tuesday, weeks after condemning adolescent and child mental health services as the NHS’s most glaring area of failure to meet need.

“However, this type of care should be an absolute last resort, once all other avenues have been exhausted,” Hunt said. “But to help ease demand, we recently opened 50 new beds, increasing the total number to the highest there has ever been.” Those 50 took the NHS’s supply of beds in children and young people’s mental health services up to 1,442, though the continued use of adult wards suggests that is not enough.

Sarah Brennan, the chief executive of the charity Young Minds, said: “It’s completely unacceptable that vulnerable children are still being treated on adult mental health wards, six years after the government changed the law to stop this from happening. Young people often find it terrifying to be placed alongside much older patients, and say that it adds to their distress rather than helping them.”

Meanwhile, new research to be released on Monday reveals huge frustration among parents of children and young people with mental health conditions at the difficulty of obtaining help for them.

Two-thirds (66%) of such parents surveyed by Young Minds complained that their child had to wait a long time to get treatment, and almost half (49%) said no one believed them when they first raised concerns about their offspring’s mental welfare.

Two in five (41%) of the 316 parents said thresholds for accessing treatment were too high, which meant their child was deemed not ill enough to warrant NHS care, while 36% had paid a private counsellor, psychologist or other therapist to help their child because NHS care was unavailable.

“Not only are many thousands of young people suffering with mental health problems but their parents are suffering too. They feel helpless, unheard and are desperate to help their young people but don’t have the knowledge or tools”, said Emma Rigby, chief executive of the Association for Young People’s Health.

Revealed: dozens of children still treated on adult psychiatric wards

Three-quarters of labour wards lack consultant cover at night – survey

About three in four labour wards do not have on-site overnight cover from consultants, figures suggest.

A survey of 165 maternity units found that in 2014-15 about 27% of labour wards had consultants physically present overnight on weekdays, falling to 15% at the weekend.

The census by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) also found the number of consultants may have reduced since figures were first recorded in 2013 and some recommendations on early pregnancy care had not been implemented.

Edward Morris, the vice-president of clinical quality at the body, said: “The RCOG recommends that trusts should ensure the adequate provision of consultant cover to deliver high quality, safe care to women. It is important to highlight that all consultant-led maternity units currently have 24-hour access to consultant obstetricians on call, some with resident working where needed.

“Ultimately, local trusts need to look carefully at the mix of their patient load, risk profile and staffing to decide whether their particular unit needs more frequent consultant presence.”

The RCOG said slightly fewer units had provided responses to the latest census, so the data had to be interpreted with caution.

The number of consultants had reduced since the survey was first carried out. However, the body said this was likely to be a reflection of a fall in the number of responses.

However, it found recommendations to increase the low number of weekend early pregnancy services had not been put into effect. “It is not clear why this remains the case as in the interest of patient care this would be considered one of the first services that could be provided seven days a week,” the RCOG said.

Some studies have suggested that round-the-clock cover by consultants is only necessary on the busiest labour wards.

An NHS England spokeswoman said: “Having a baby is now safer than it has ever been and the vast majority of mothers report that they get great NHS maternity care.

“Researchers at Oxford University have shown that overnight consultant obstetrician presence isn’t proven to improve care, and a national diktat to that effect would mean the closure of many smaller units, which is another reason why it wouldn’t necessarily be a good idea.”

Three-quarters of labour wards lack consultant cover at night – survey

Maternity wards in England to be rated by safety record

The government is to release new ratings for maternity wards across England to allow prospective parents to compare and contrast services in NHS hospitals, as part of a drive to reduce instances of stillbirth and brain injuries during labour.

Maternity data detailing the frequency of accidents within clinical commissioning groups and the health prospects of expectant mothers – including the percentage of smokers, for example – will be collated to form England-wide ratings.

In a major speech on Monday, Jeremy Hunt will also unveil proposals to allow the NHS to offer compensation automatically to parents of babies left stillborn or brain-damaged because of poor care. The health secretary wants parents of children starved of oxygen at birth no longer to endure a wait of about 11 years for compensation.

Stillbirth rates are still among the highest in western Europe, according to Jeremy Hunt. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

At present parents often become embroiled in lengthy and costly legal action against the NHS, forcing grieving families to fight for months or even years before the health service agrees to compensation.

Bereaved parents often have to instruct solicitors to determine the cause of their child’s death, with health bosses sometimes denying any liability until they are ordered to pay compensation by a judge.

Under the new scheme, which was first recommended by Tory peer Baroness Cumberlege earlier this year, an independent rapid resolution and redress scheme will be set up to investigate tragedies in childbirth, which would quickly decide whether compensation should be paid.

The launch comes as figures showed that the cost of settling claims with parents whose children are damaged at birth has reached more than £0.5bn. The NHS as a whole pays out more than £1bn a year in negligence compensation, and reducing that cost is seen a key way of mitigating the financial crisis facing the service.

In February this year, Cumberlege recommended the investigations into maternity cases and any subsequent payouts are made by the trusts without any court involvement. The recommendation was one of several made by Cumberlege, who has been chairing an independent review of maternity services in England.

The new proposals are modelled on a Swedish scheme, which has reduced serious avoidable birth injuries by about 50% in the past six to seven years.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he hoped to end the culture where going to court was an automatic “first step” and instead foster a culture of transparency so the NHS can learn from its mistakes.

Under the plans, claims by parents who believe medical errors have caused severe damage to their children – such as cerebral palsy or brain damage – would be assessed by investigators working independently of the NHS trust. The investigators would quiz NHS staff and parents and look at medical records.

Compensation for errors around the time of birth has reached more than £500m a year. Photograph: Sturti/Getty Images

Their findings would be presented to a panel of legal and medical experts who would decide whether any compensation is warranted and arrange for payments to be made to the family.

The government hopes the scheme – which would assess about 500 cases a year – will help dismantle what it sees as a “litigation culture”. It would work out far cheaper for the NHS than the current route, in which cases go to court or are settled out of court, often for millions of pounds.

Data from the NHS Litigation Authority shows the compensation bill to the NHS for errors around the time of birth is rising, reaching £509.3m in 2015/16 – up from £393.2m in 2014/15.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the plan, which will be the subject of a consultation, would not “lock” parents into the scheme and would let them bring their own legal case against the trust if they were unhappy with the outcome.

The new maternity ward ratings follow Hunt’s recent creation of similar schemes to help patients and families compare the quality of cancer and dementia care. However, once they start being published, they will set out details for services within each of the NHS’s 209 GP-led clinical commissioning groups rather than the 156 acute hospital trusts with maternity services. Hunt said that openness about the quality of care will help empower patients and reduce wide variation in care quality.

In a speech at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Hunt will also set out £8m for training, with at least £40,000 available to each NHS trust in England.

A £250,000 maternity safety innovation fund will pilot new ideas for improving care, while maternity ratings for every part of England – using data that already exists – will be published together to encourage greater transparency.

Other measures being unveiled include a new Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, modelled on the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. A new tool will also standardise the investigation of every stillbirth and early baby death so lessons can be learned.

Hunt said: “Our NHS maternity staff do a fantastic job under huge pressure. But even though we have made much progress, our stillbirth rates are still among the highest in western Europe and many on the frontline say there is still too much of a blame culture when things go wrong – often caused by fear of litigation or worry about damage to reputation and careers.

“These comprehensive measures will give practical support to help trusts improve their approach to safety – and help to foster an open and transparent culture so that the courts become a last resort not an automatic first step.”

In May this year a new report revealed figures that 15 babies are dying every day in the UK from stillbirth, during labour or within four weeks of being born.

The report was published by MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries in the UK), which is a collaboration of academics and medical experts.

It found that there were big variations in death rates across the country, from 4.1 to 7.1 per 1,000 births. Women from the poorest backgrounds and black and Asian mothers run a higher risk that their baby will die in the womb or soon after birth.

In nearly half of all stillbirths (46%), the causes of death are unknown, said the report. The biggest causes of death in the early weeks of life are complications following birth (32%) and congenital anomalies such as heart defects (28%), and very premature birth (13%).

The MBRRACE team flagged up the need for research into premature births and also called for every maternity unit to review and record the causes of death in the same way to try to discover why there are such stark variations around the country.

James Taylor, head of policy and public affairs at disability charity Scope, said of the new plans: “Finding out that your child has been affected by a birth injury can be a very traumatic time for parents.

“So it is very positive that the government will be listening to disabled people and their parents on how the NHS can better support families when serious issues do occur during birth.”

Maternity wards in England to be rated by safety record

Hospital A&E wards "in crisis over shortage of emergency doctors"

Hospital accident and emergency wards are in crisis as the supply of doctors fails to keep pace with demand for them in A&E departments according to medics’ representatives.

The warning from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine came as an A&E in the east Midlands announced it may have to temporarily close its doors at night owing to a national shortage of emergency doctors.

United Lincolnshire hospitals NHS trust (ULHT) said that a “crisis point” had been reached and patients’ lives could be put at risk if action was not taken at Grantham and District hospital.

Management at ULHT said they were looking to reduce A&E hours because the department was facing a severe shortage of doctors.

The trust, which runs the A&E, as well as two others in the region, said that it had been seriously affected by a “national shortage of appropriately trained doctors to work in A&Es”, adding: “We have reached a crisis point and we may put patients at risk if we don’t act.”

Dr Suneil Kapadia, medical director at ULHT, said: “We haven’t made a final decision yet, and we hope to avoid this, but the reality is we will need to temporarily reduce the opening hours of A&E at Grantham. The quality and safety of patient care is the trust’s number one priority and we haven’t rested on our laurels.

“We have tried to recruit in the UK and internationally, and we have offered premium rates to attract agency doctors whilst investing £4m in urgent care services. Despite this, we have reached crisis point.”

Dr Clifford Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the “great efforts” made by doctors and nurses to help patients in under-resourced locations sometimes was not sustainable.

“As well as potentially putting patient safety at risk, placing an ever-increasing workload on overstretched staff can create a vicious circle in retention and recruitment with many overworked trainees simply choosing to leave the country or indeed the specialty altogether,” Mann said.

“The wider picture is there is a real crisis in emergency medicine as our workforce numbers are not growing fast enough to keep pace with rising numbers of patients attending A&E departments.”

Shortages of doctors and nurses have come into sharp focus at other hospitals recently. The chief executive of crisis-hit North Middlesex hospital left her post after NHS inspectors found its A&E unit was risking patients’ health by forcing them to endure “excessive” waits to see a doctor, it emerged last month.

Julie Lowe was replaced on an interim basis by a senior executive from another London hospital in the wake of a scathing report by the Care Quality Commission into multiple patient safety failings at the North Middlesex.

The NHS care regulator’s inspectors found that shortages of doctors and nurses in A&E were so acute, and the unit so busy, that untrained receptionists were judging which patients needed medical attention first. It is one of the busiest A&Es in London, treating 500 patients a day.

The report said: “Walk-in patients were seen by a receptionist, who decided if they were suitable for the urgent care centre or, with a more serious condition, needed to go to the main emergency department.”

Hospital A&E wards "in crisis over shortage of emergency doctors"

Bounty Mutiny victory for Mumsnet: income reps need to be banned from NHS maternity wards

_{Income reps have no area on maternity wards}

Soon after providing birth for the second time, I was lying in a maternity ward, a bit befuddled, overwhelmed and, I’m sure, hanging halfway out of my hospital gown. My daughter, who had but to meet any of her grandparents or uncles, was lying subsequent to me when an productive and officious female bustled into the room. She quickly scanned the occupants of the four beds in the ward, and then set about speaking to my 3 ward-mates, collecting their information and giving them their post-natal Bounty packs. When she acquired to my bed, and I asked her what on earth she was doing there, she informed me that I was “too posh”, “plainly did not require [her] hand-outs”, and trundled off. As my vowels are a lot more Brooklyn than Cheltenham Ladies’ University, I have no notion what gave her that impression – possibly the mere act of questioning her presence in my personalized room (how entitled am I?) – but both way, 4 hrs post-birth was not the time to be judged, or pressured to get any certain goods.

Permitting commercial revenue reps onto wards with any individuals is disgraceful. A patient’s privacy and dignity need to be leading priority at all times, and the only men and women going to them must be health pros or near household and pals – not salespeople. However the NHS has encouraged the practice for many years, reportedly earning £5.50 per child born through this money-for-accessibility deal.

There is ample evidence of revenue reps collecting information with out permission, and suggesting that individuals who refused to divulge private information would not be eligible to claim youngster benefit. A lot more than half of mothers surveyed by Mumsnet said the Bounty reps had “invaded their privacy”, and 60 per cent mentioned they had not been told (as they should have been) that their personal specifics would be sold on to other businesses. More than 4 out of five mothers imagined the Bounty reps need to be denied access to wards. The NHS ought to have banned this years in the past.

Now, thanks to Mumsnet’s Bounty Mutiny campaign, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is last but not least examining the practice. Even though the campaign – in which the parenting network gathered far more than 90,000 signatures to a petition calling for an finish to the Bounty reps – has only just announced its victory, considering that April of this yr the CQC has been investigating no matter whether the reps invade the privacy of new mothers. A number of NHS trusts have announced previously that they will be terminating contracts with Bounty. But it is a victory no significantly less and I hope a rallying contact for widespread adjust.

Let’s hope that all NHS trusts adhere to suit quickly, so maternity wards can be risk-free, private areas for mothers, fathers and babies to bond. Soon after all, each and every single aspect of childhood is commercialised these days – let’s preserve the tough-sell out of the maternity ward.

Bounty Mutiny victory for Mumsnet: income reps need to be banned from NHS maternity wards

Product sales reps in NHS maternity wards are a advertising and marketing push too far for mothers

From earliest childhood, it really is made clear to us that a main alter in daily life is very best tackled by a trip to the outlets. New school many years are dealt with by the acquire, in August, of pencil instances, lunchboxes and also-long trousers. Starting up a new task? Head down the large street for something non-crease and expert-searching. Moving into your very first flat? Hello, Ikea.

As we get older, we can come to view the shopping sprees that arise in advance of considerable daily life events as an integral element of the events themselves. There’s some thing reassuringly organised and adult about heading to the shops with a list of essentials ahead of embarking on a new project – a kind of true-globe expression of the Scouts’ motto. If you happen to be outfitted, the considering goes, you are by definition ready, and given that there is no lifestyle occasion for which we feel more flailingly unprepared than the arrival of a very first child, logic dictates that the very best form of preparation is a commensurately large purchasing expedition.

All of which explains why new mothers and fathers are uniquely susceptible to the blandishments of businesses seeking to component them from their income. You’ve never ever had a little one prior to, after all – and infants, much a lot more than 1st flats or new schools, perform on our emotions as well as our ignorance.

If someone implies that you are going to permanently endanger your child’s health and wellbeing if you don’t supply them with a Zaky Hand Pillow (“designed to imitate the seem and feel of a parent’s hand”), who are you to argue?

The good news is, these days, we’re not as alone in our ignorance as we used to be. When it comes to laying in retailers for the baby’s arrival, we’re no longer obliged to rely on the guidance of our own mother and father, which tends to fall into 1 of two unhelpful camps: “We put you to rest in a bottom drawer and it by no means did you any harm” or “what do you imply, you haven’t purchased a child hairbrush?” If you’re dithering more than regardless of whether or not you ought to get a Moses basket as well as a cot, or how much you should commit on a pushchair, you can go on the web and beg for tips from individuals a minor additional down the road.

Over the years, and the program of several discussions, mothers and fathers on Mumsnet have come up with a rough checklist of essentials for new mother and father, the considering behind which is best summed up by the sentence “just because some thing exists, does not imply you are actually going to require it”. And even if you need it, you do not have to get a brand new a single (with a couple of exceptions, this kind of as vehicle seats and cot mattresses).

With the benefit of encounter, they have boiled the necessities down to a quite quick list: a secure sleeping place for your child (although a drawer may possibly be pushing it), nappies, a pram, a vehicle seat and wipes or cotton wool for wiping extraneous substances off the new centre of your world. Perhaps a sling or a bouncer if you are feeling flush – and, of program, bottles and sterilisers if you are bottle feeding. Every thing else is an optional extra.

There’s no query that marketing departments especially set out to exploit the truth that new dad and mom have a tendency to be each emotionally labile and green as grass – but at the end of the day, when it comes to getting little one kit, we all have the choice to put down the infant-wipe warmer, leave the shop and put the income we’ve avoided investing in a financial savings account for our child to use 1 day to spend for a few hrs of higher schooling, or put down a deposit on a garden shed. We have the option to stroll away. Where we don’t have that option, though, is in maternity wards.

For decades Bounty, a data-marketing and advertising company, has been purchasing accessibility to NHS maternity wards, the place its representatives (typically paid on a commission-only basis) strategy new mothers and ask them for their individual details. This data is then sold on to an limitless quantity of companies which have a business interest in reaching new mothers and fathers.

When you outline this circumstance to any person who hasn’t had cause to grow to be acquainted with NHS maternity services, there is normally some preliminary resistance to the probability that this can be occurring: absolutely we don’t enable commercial product sales reps to wander NHS wards at will?

Effectively, yes, we do it truly is accepted practice in many NHS trusts and, in the case of Her Majesty’s Income and Customs, we really shell out Bounty for the privilege, due to the fact kid-advantage declare varieties – along with samples of business items – are incorporated in the packs provided out at bedsides. The reality that these varieties are freely accessible on the internet and by phone, and could be handed out by local community midwives or birth registrars, looks to lower no ice with HMRC, which is estimated to have paid Bounty in excess of half a million lbs in the previous five years.

These business reps – whose revenue is dependent on how a lot of sets of patient information they can harvest – have entry to new mums who are frequently bed-bound and recovering from what is at ideal a demanding bodily experience, at worst a deeply traumatic 1.

Most of these women will be exhausted several will be feeling the results of powerful medicines administered for the duration of and following the birth huge numbers have had key abdominal surgical procedure in the previous 24 hrs.

If an NHS believe in proposed these days that it was going to introduce Viagra product sales reps into men’s genitourinary wards, or reps for walking aids to orthopaedic wards, the really least you’d anticipate would be some stout resistance.

It is a measure of the power of the association amongst “motherhood” and “buying things” that the presence of industrial representatives on maternity wards has been tolerated for so lengthy.

You have just had a little one and 28 stitches in your nethers? Why on earth would you not want a snappy salesperson wandering up and asking for your email tackle, your deal with and postcode, and your date of birth, so that this useful personal information can be sold on to myriad organizations? Hey, you get a tiny pot of Sudocrem in exchange.

Stories abound of Bounty representatives barging in on females who are attempting to set up breastfeeding, or just making an attempt to catch some rest. Numerous females feel the reps to be healthcare assistants, and only realise that they have handed their data to an unrelated organisation when the mountains of spam begin to create up.

Dad and mom whose babies die can devote many years attempting to eliminate their information from the marketing lists of companies who have purchased their information. When asked how they justify it, trust managers say that number of individuals complain. Bounty’s very own statistics present that to be true. But, as the consumer organisation Which? mentioned this month, one-third of men and women who had a dilemma with the NHS inside the last 12 months didn’t complain simply because they just did not know how, and the initial number of months of a baby’s lifestyle tend to be a time when non-crucial admin (such as wrestling with your well being trust) goes by the board.

Galvanised by our members’ irritation at the practice, and together with some redoubtable GPs and midwives, Mumsnet launched a campaign against the presence of income reps on maternity wards last 12 months, and in time we hope to see this pernicious practice end. (If you’d like to add your voice and consider some action, check out our “Bounty mutiny” webpage.)

Most of us appreciate the chance for a spending spree and, of program, anyone who needs to drop some cash in exchange for non-vital fripperies must do just that, with the typical disclaimers about sensible economic management, consideration of your available floor room, and the desirability of recyclable packaging. But in their function as customers, mother and father deserve the identical rights to informed option and great data as every person else – and not to be subjected, by NHS mandate, to the hard sell at a hospital bedside.

Sarah Crown is editor of mumsnet.com

Product sales reps in NHS maternity wards are a advertising and marketing push too far for mothers

Mentally unwell children handled on grownup wards far from residence

Hundreds of children with mental overall health problems are getting handled on grownup psychiatric wards, the BBC has reported.

A freedom of details request by the broadcaster to NHS mental well being trusts in England also found several younger folks have been being placed hundreds of miles away from property for remedy.

Figures from 51 of the 58 trusts showed that 350 under-18s have been admitted so far to adult mental overall health wards in 2013/2014, in contrast with 242 two many years earlier.

They also revealed that twelve beneath-16s have been admitted so far in 2013/14, in contrast with three in 2011/2012.

10 trusts had sent children far more than 150 miles away for care. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said it had to transfer a little one 275 miles away to Bury in Greater Manchester due to the fact there was no bed available nearer property.

Dr Michael McClure, clinical director of children’s and adolescent’s mental well being solutions at Central and North West London NHS Basis Believe in, mentioned medical professionals faced this problem every single day. “Sometimes we have to make 50 to 100 cellphone calls close to the country looking for a bed,” he informed the BBC.

“They [younger men and women] shouldn’t be shunted close to into inappropriate facilities, however much the staff there try to help them.

“It could be the first time they’ve had a breakdown. They need to have to remain in touch with the folks they know and adore, and if they’re possessing to move 200 or 300 miles it is quite tough for the family members to stay in touch.”

Dr Jacqueline Cornish, NHS England’s national clinical director for kids, younger people and transition to adulthood, said treating kids with psychological well being difficulties in adult settings was “totally unacceptable in the bulk of cases”.

NHS England was conducting a three-month “rapid review” into the circumstance, she advised the BBC. The DoH said young children and younger people’s psychological wellness was a priority.

Mentally unwell children handled on grownup wards far from residence