3 minute read
OUT OF THE DARK
Imagine being mentally unwell and about to be admitted to hospital against your will. Now imagine waiting long hours while the paperwork needed to get you to a place of safety to be sorted out. We explore how Mersey Care is leading the way in using technical advancements to make things better.
Waffa Nasser has had many bouts of mental ill health in her life. Each time the distress was compounded by long waits to be admitted to hospital.
Mersey Care Service user and volunteer Waffa Nasser says digital developments will bring about swifter access to care for people detainedunder the Mental Health Act.
“Any time I’ve been put into hospital it’s been traumatising. You’re in the dark, confused and terrified. It feels like no-one is telling you anything. You’re scared you’ll deteriorate while you’re waiting for the paperwork to arrive.
You’re being asked to tell your story and explain how you’re feeling again and again. It makes you relive difficult situations which makes you feel even worse. If the information was on a screen and available that wouldn’t happen.”
As a psychiatrist, Arun Chidambaram has experienced the frustration of paper forms to detain someone under the Mental Heath Act.
He has campaigned and Mersey Care has led the field in digitising its entire system. Digitalisation has since been authorised and ratified by law.
Dr Chidambaram explains: “Within mental health, we do most things digitally, from electronic patient records, and increasingly electronic prescribing. Mental Health Act detention is the last piece of data still kept as paper copies.
"It involves other organisations – police, ambulance, local authority – so paper worked because it could be passed between whichever agencies were involved in making sure someone got help.
"However it hasn’t been modernised since the Mental Health Act came into being and had several reviews; all the time that one piece of paper is used over and over again. It’s challenging for professionals. You know someone needs to be detained and admitted to hospital so they can get help, but the paperwork can hold things up and the person can deteriorate even further.
“There are so many checks and balances and opportunities for error, from the writing eventually becoming illegible, to a wrong spelling of a name or a date of birth, or the form being mislaid along the way. If we don’t get it right we could be detaining the person illegally. More important is how traumatic it can be for the person waiting. It may feel like a violation. It’s primitive.
During the pandemic the ability to use digital forms helped enormously in reducing transmission. "We can transfer the paperwork electronically, so I can be in one place, a social worker somewhere else, but because we both have the information we can act quickly."
Dr Arun Chidambaram
The pandemic has seen an increase in the number of people detained under the Mental Health Act. Digitisation of mental health forms hasn’t been done because of COVID -19, but it will make a big difference. As I have been often saying now – Digital is not just for COVID.”
Waffa Nasser is a service user representative and expert by experience in digital improvements, as part of Mersey Care’s Global Digital Exemplar programme, helping people in her position have a better experience, and to promote digital inclusion.
“For me it’s about getting swifter access to care and for that care to be informed by staff knowing what’s happened in the past to make someone unwell.
“They won’t need to ask distressing questions, they’ll be able to see what your difficulties are. They’ll know what triggers you and how to approach a conversation so they don’t say something that makes things worse. I don’t know why it hasn’t happened before but I’m glad it’s happening now.”
Mersey Care is a Global Digital Exemplar. In 2017 the Trust successfully attracted £5m of central NHS funding to accelerate our ambition to digitally transform our services. We are working on a number of projects looking at delivering exceptional care, efficiently, through the use of world class digital technology and information.
The Mental Health Act (1983) is the main piece of legislation that covers the assessment, treatment and rights of people with a mental health disorder. People detained under the Mental Health Act need urgent treatment for a mental health disorder and are at risk of harm to themselves or others.
