PPlog

At worst, they lie; at best, they are incompetent or unconsciously defensive. Hospital boards of directors, executives and senior managers are prone to clutching at and caressing their vested interests. Their processes are immersed in the business model and that is notorious for deceit and wheeling and dealing. Basildon and Thurrock Hospitals were “inspected” by means of self-reporting: the hospital is asked a series of questions to which it provides answers. If those those answers are in the affirmative to the overall question “ is your hospital meeting all the standards it should?” then it passes the inspection - their word is taken that everything is all right. Since April 2008, in each local authority area, there has been a safeguard against this kind of naive gullibility. That safeguard is called Local Involvement Networks (LINks). LINks are set up by law to provide a service user, carer and general public voice to protect standards in health and socia...

I've always had a little quirk. The first time I saw the road sign "Ramp Ahead" my first thought was 'How do I ramp ahead?' Good verb though - I can see the instructor: "Right lads, get it right this time. Steady now - get prepared.....and.....RAMP." So it came to pass that when I saw the title of our Manchester conference I immediately thought it was an Alexander Armstrong catch-phrase resulting in the Sun headline: "Shoot All Service Users." Ironically, the use of understandable and unambiguous words and language was a consistent topic at the seminar. Ah well! All in the/my mind perhaps! But the seminar was a terrific success. People, a majority of mental health service users, from: Birmingham Manchester Oldham Berkshire Leeds London Anglesey Norfolk Durham Sandwell Merseyside Cumbria Stoke on Trent Bromley All warmly talking to each other, learning from each other, making links with each other, sharing experiences with each other. Organisati...