Mental health nursing

Our aim is to provide high quality integrated care and to work collaboratively with our service users to support their recovery making a positive difference to their health, well-being and independence. We have a strong recovery ethos and are dedicated to promoting service user involvement at all levels. Adult mental health services offer a truly diverse role, supporting adults through various mental illnesses.

We have a number of inpatient wards across Hampshire, including one providing care for serving military personnel, psychiatric intensive care units, a mother and baby unit, female and male care for people experiencing a period of acute and severe psychiatric illness.

We also provide a range of community-based mental health services for people who need support for their mental health issues. We want our patients to be able to take much greater control over the way they are treated, and will encourage them to set your own goals, priorities and hopes for the future. We focus on recovery from illness, rather than just on treatment. This approach is called the ‘recovery’ principle and runs through all of the work that we do.
 

Mental health and emotional well-being are as important in older age as at any other time of life. With increasing rates of Dementia, we are passionate about providing the best mental health care for the people we treat with our specialist services.

Our aim is to provide high quality integrated care and to work collaboratively with our patients to support their recovery making a positive difference to their health, well-being and independence. Working with our patients and their families and carers we are providing bespoke care plans centred around their needs and wishes.

We have a number of wards supporting older people's mental health across Hampshire, based at our community hospitals (including Gosport, Lymington, Parklands, Western) which offer care for people with organic mental health needs and functional mental health needs. We also offer care and support through our community teams. 

Older people's mental health (OPMH) nursing and care can be a speciality that is sometimes overlooked. However, the complexity of skills required to care for a patients with dementia, embodies what health care is all about and pull on every facet of staff's training. A patient with dementia and their family need time, understanding and a person centred approach to really help understand behaviours and support strategies to improve wellbeing. 

Dementia affects so many people and families and sadly it is not a reversible condition. So we think it is important to raise awareness around the need for more research, early identification and signposting to support. 

Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, commonly known as CAMHS, is a term used to describe services that work with children and young people who have difficulty with their emotional and/or behavioural wellbeing.

Our CAMHS service is an exciting and rewarding place to be working and helps young people aged 12-18 with a wide range of mental health conditions. We have three units; Leigh House in Winchester and Bluebird House and Austen House based at Tatchbury Mount in Southampton. 

Leigh House is an award winning purpose built hospital that not only helps patients recover from eating disorders but it also looks after young people with other mental health conditions such as depression, OCD and psychosis. 

Bluebird House is one of six secure forensic mental health services for young people within the NHS. It is a highly specialist purpose built unit which has an established and dedicated multi-disciplinary team. 

Austen House is a low secure, forensic unit for children and young people aged 12-18 years. They often have complex mental health problems which means they may pose a risk to the themselves. 

Working in CAMHS can be very challenging but we have a dedicated workforce from various disciplines that work closely together to ensure the best possible outcomes for our patients. No two days in CAMHS are ever the same but the work is very interesting and there is lots of fun to be had working with the young people!
 

Our specialised mental health services provide secure and intensive support for both male and female patients from the age of 12. We currently have six specialised services including three children and adolescent mental health units (mentioned in the bar above) 

Some of the patients within these units have been detained under the Mental Health Act or have committed a crime. The patients admitted to our specialised service units present with a range of mental health issues including psychosis, personality disorder and depression or eating disorders.

Our forensic units are:

• Ashford is a 10-bed inpatient low secure learning disability unit for men. 
• Bluebird House is a specialist, forensic medium secure mental health inpatient unit for young people. 
• Southfield is a 28-bed specialist low secure forensic mental health inpatient unit for adults.
• Ravenswood House is a medium secure unit for adults with serious mental illness.
• Leigh House is an acute adolescent psychiatric unit for young people between the ages of 12 to 18 years. This unit doesn't admit anyone who has committed a crime or that is held under the criminal justice act. Leigh House treats young people with a variety of mental health illnesses and has specialist eating disorders beds.
• Austen House is a low secure, forensic unit for children and young people aged 12-18 years.

We have a multi-sisciplinary team made up of nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, medical teams at all of our sites. Our teams are dedicated to providing the best possible care for our patients with the aim of recovery and allowing the patient to return to the community.

We also have a specialist Community Forensic Team which works to intensively help patients (24/7) as they move into the community, so they can eventually live safely and independently with the support of our community mental health services.