Cygnet Sedgley House and Lodge has won a national award for their work to keep therapeutic services running during the pandemic.
Staff and patients at the inpatient rehabilitation service for men with complex needs, in Woodcross Street, Wolverhampton, were singled out for an initiative developed during the recent lockdowns to involve service users in vital roles within the hospital. These included supporting PPE Audits and CPR drills when the pandemic disrupted vocational community-based activities.
Cygnet Sedgley House and Lodge took home the “Mark Britton Service User Choice Award” at this year’s National Service User Awards, sponsored by Cygnet Health Care. The awards are designed to recognise and celebrate the achievements of service users in mental health and learning disability services across the country.
Loretta Martin, Hospital Manager at Cygnet Sedgley House said: “Co-production is so important here at Sedgley as it empowers the service users to develop independence and build confidence. During the pandemic we had to be creative to keep our service users busy as their schedules were already affected enough by the lockdown. The programmes helped with this and gave them something to occupy them, but it really helped us work together as a team.”
After the award, a service user at Cygnet Sedgley House said: “Doing the audit everyday made me feel safer from the virus and that we were all working together to stop the virus spreading.”
Mark Britton had been involved with the National Service User Awards in previous years and the ‘Service User Choice Award’ was set up to commemorate his life and recognise his contribution to the awards before he sadly passed away in July 2019 at the age of 51. Mark suffered mental health challenges himself and championed both the awards and the voice of service users. He played a crucial part in many co-produced initiatives both within and outside of Cygnet Health Care for many years.
He dedicated his career to representing inpatient services, contributing to the East Midlands new models of care provider collaborative and PHE strategic planning where he could use his voice to promote service improvements. He mentored many other service users in their journey to become experts by experience and in his role as Service User Mentor he was involved in inducting the new staff on his ward.
Ian Callaghan, the head judge for the Service User Choice category and Recovery and Secure Care Manager at Rethink Mental Illness, lauded the project. He said: “The things people have been able to do during this difficult time, using it as a catalyst for collaborating service users and staff on something so important – keeping each other, and everyone, safe is a brilliant example of people turning difficult times into something that brought people together.”
Finalists at the awards included teams from Inmind Healthcare, Priory Healthcare, Rampton Hospital, Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust, Chase Farm Hospital, at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, Vaigate, at the NAViGO Health and Social CIC, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust, Ludlow Street Healthcare and the Yorkshire and Humber Involvement Network, as well as Cygnet Health Care.
Cygnet Sedgley House and Cygnet Sedgley Lodge offer a 34-bed high dependency inpatient rehabilitation service for men with complex needs. The service is designed to provide an environment that promotes mental health recovery by focusing on space, personal privacy and dignity. It is rated Good by the Care Quality Commission.
