Nottingham Clinic Information

A day in the life of The Ansel Group Nottingham Clinic:

Handover, de-brief and breakfast

The Ansel Group Nottingham Clinic is a 24 bed specialist Tier 4 residential mental health service designed and built to the latest draft guidance for our patient population.

A typical morning for the ward based Clinic staff commences with a handover and de-briefing between 7 and 8 am as the shift teams swap. The opportunity to have a structured handover and period of reflection at the end of the shift provides an emotionally safe place for staff to work through any problems and challenges and celebrate successes and positive outcomes before they leave for home.

Breakfast in the ward areas runs for an hour between 8.00 and 9.00 with staff and patients eating together, catching up and planning the day ahead. Patients on the upper floor will generally prepare their own breakfast in the ward kitchen from the weekly menu they've put together and shopped for.

Off ward the majority of the non-direct care staff will be in to work by 8.30am and will be moving ahead with a typical working day. The Clinic is well used for meetings, attracts a reasonable number of visitors and as with any organisation employing circa 50 staff is a busy place.

Morning meetings, personal programmes and RiO

In the ward areas the daily patient meetings run from 9.30am for upto an hour. It’s an important part of the day creating an open and supported forum for active and engaged discussion across a range of topics. As with mostactivity at the Clinic it also provides a catalyst for informing further meetings and on going therapeutic work.

Following the meeting the patients break out to their own individual activity programmes. The session

tend to be built around key interest and development areas; current affairs, health, education, sport, finance etc using the subjects and the time to expand each patient’s personal development and inform their therapeutic activity.

Off ward activities across the day will include professional supervision and perhaps less formal peer discussion and support. The RiO patient records management data set is also updated daily for each patient informing our research and development outcomes and the mapping of detailed information series for each of our patients.

In the patient areas more formalised work follows the first of the morning’s activity sessions with engagement with our psychology and social work teams either individually or in groups for those patients staying at the Clinic for the day. Patients who are supported on section 17 leave from the Clinic either on a home visit or accessing education, services, activities or amenities in the local community will tend to leave around this time.

The morning’s activity is rounded up with lunch between 12 and 1pm. Patients on the upper floor, if not off site for the full day, will again do most of their own shopping and cooking with those on the ground floor wards receiving more support from the Clinic’s catering staff team.

Afternoon activity sessions

Afternoon patient activity sessions follow and may include time with each patient’s personal fitness coach, a session with the Clinic drumming circle or access to a range of off site activities. Patients may also be working on their educational development programme or will be engaged in more formalised therapy addressing clinical and if required offence related issues.

CPA’s, tribunals and professional meetings are typically held off ward along with the bi-weekly exec team meetings and monthly board meetings. All the executive and Board team members are trained and supported to work in the patient areas and a number run activity sessions and work shops with the patients in addition to offering shift support to the ward teams. Afternoons typically are also the times that we run open information seminars and training events at the Clinic.

The day’s end

Dinner is generally available from 5pm across the service. Evenings tend to have a more recreational focus and include quiz nights, film nights, competitions and music sessions with the aim of winding most things up by 10pm.

The non-direct care staff will typically leave the Clinic at 5pm although they are able to access the building 24 hours a day across the year should they want to. The ward staff then repeat the morning shift hand over process with a de-brief session and support the patients as required through the night and into the following morning and the start of another day.

We are good at what we do and our patients are able to make significant progress in relatively short periods of time. 30% of our patients have been discharged from the Clinic within 12 months of arrival. All patients at the Clinic are placed on a discharge pathway from the date of admission and our average length of stay at the Clinic is 15 months. This saves money, incentivises each of our patients and clearly demonstrates our commitment to sustainable outcomes and to making a difference.