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Hospitals in England are facing unprecedented demand that they are struggling to meet. More people are being admitted to hospital in emergency situations that ever before. The increase in demand has led some people to look for admissions that could be considered avoidable. One group of people who have received particular attention are care home residents. Care home residents are amongst the ‘oldest old’ in society – research suggests that over half of all care home residents aged 85 years or above. What is more, care home residents often have multiple health conditions and a wide range of complex health and social care needs. For some care home residents, the risks associated with a stay in hospital can outweigh the potential benefits.

When I was a student nurse, I often wondered if there was a space outside the acute mental health wards where people could experience the type of freedom that they talked about away from the mundane, restricted and controlled environment that offered little or no activities to stimulate the mind. I asked for placements in community mental health services, and I was very disappointed to see that some of the nurses in the community mental health services had similar attitudes as some nurses that I saw on the wards. Some mental health nurses are tired with very high levels of empathy fatigue, lack of compassion and the depersonalisation of people that had their identities replaced with labels such as bed number 3, the one that paces about and the one this, and the one that. Thus, when I qualified as a mental health nurse, I knew exactly the kind of nurse that I wanted to be; the opposite of the nurses that I described above.

Call for papers! If you are an IMH doctoral candidate, part of IMH Managed Innovation Networks (MINs), or an early-career researcher (including research assistants, research fellows, research-active clinicians and service users) please consider submitting an abstract for the event to showcase your work. Oral and poster presentations accepted. Send completed abstract submission form found here to Amna Al Shamsi: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by no later than 25 March 2019. You need to be connected to the IMH to submit an abstract but attendance is open to all.

Have you ever felt a gap in knowledge on best practice when researching people with mental health conditions (MHCs)? As a junior researcher in this area- I certainly have! And I know many of my colleagues have as well. It’s a gap which hasn’t been filled thus far by other, more general skills courses - as, after all, there are some more unique factors involved in researching people with MHCs which not everyone has knowledge or experience of. But fear not - the Centre for Mental Health and Human Rights (CMHHR) have answers!

To listen to doctors and nurses describe their everyday experience, is to realize how visceral, how raw, the interaction between them and their patients really is. We dress our doctors in white coats, our nurses in colour-coded uniforms, and dress our health policy in jargon but essentially the business of ‘healing’ is a series of ancient rituals,

A really insightful piece from Trevor Clower. Trevor organises the Carers Road Shows every year. You can follow his posts and activities through his blog.

The hula-hoop, the shimmy and the fiddle10 October was World Mental Health Day and on Saturday 14 October Carnival MAD enlivened the IMH as part of a Nottingham-wide programme of events: see http://www.mhaw.org.uk/The inimitable Julie Gosling chaired the day and many brave people took to the stage to demonstrate their personal strategies for wellbe

Dear readers, contributors and casual blog browsers, As we come to the end of another fantastic year for the blog I would like to thank you for all your support. The blog has received some fantastic content throughout 2017 and as always it's been great to have so many people sharing their experiences, research, views and opinions. Have a brilliant

Venue: A floor seminar rooms, Institute of Mental Health, Triumph Road, Nottingham NG7 2TU Date: Tuesday 22 May 2018, 9.00am – 5.10pm Plenary Speaker: Professor Anne Rogers Title of talk: ‘Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose’ ?: reflections on past and future research in mental health Dear All, The IMH would like to invite you to attend the 6th

Funded by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), the Nottingham People’s Choir was formed in 2013 as an initiative to promote mental health. It is not a condition of Choir membership that people have used mental health services, yet recruitment of members takes place within a local NHS mental health trust. The group, located in Nottingham, is facili

It sounds much too simple doesn’t it?  Making small talk could save a life.  But the truth is, it really could.  Today SHRG is supporting the campaign launched by the Samaritans. They are asking us all to be courageous and strike up a conversation with someone if we are worried about them at a railway station. MAKE SMALL TALK AND YOU COULD SAVE A L

In February 2017, a group of academics, researchers and “Lived experience” volunteers came together to explore the character, dynamic and outcomes of recovery colleges. The volunteers came from Leicester, London and Brighton, and were made up of people who had experienced mental health illness and attended a college, a carer of a person using the c

It is practically 12 months ago since I last wrote a blog entitled relapse. I spoke about how I was afraid that it would happen; “A lot of the time, the monster is small and I’m hardly aware it’s there. I can get on with my life, with no worries or dark thoughts, the monster stays quiet. At work, I can be extremely productive, full of ideas and pos

On Friday 17th November 2017, Professor Birgit Völlm hosted a forensic psychiatry research seminar “Interventions for Sex Offenders post-SOTP” at the Institute of Mental Health. The seminar was organised by the charity Crime in Mind and chaired by Professor Pamela Taylor. Professor John Gunn introduced the aims and objectives of Crime in Mind outli

The purpose of this exhibition was to share my art work and inspire others to try art as a means of helping them through difficult times by finding ways to express their emotions and be in the “here and now”.People have expressly stated how inspired they have been by the art and staff at IMH have stopped and thanked me stating that the light and li

The 6th IMH Research Day was held on 22nd May 2018. The event highlighted the work of the Institute’s doctoral candidates, Managed Innovation Networks (MINs), and all early-career researchers (including research assistants, research fellows, and research-active clinicians). Topics included Dementia care, Autism, ADHD, ASD, student and workplace men

Someone close to me asked me which psychiatric tablet that I take helps me the best. I thought for a few seconds and then replied that actually it wasn’t a pill that helped me the best, but a ‘thing’ - validation. They replied quite honestly that they didn’t know what validation was. So I told them........... I have blogged before about my journey

What is peer research? Peer research involves patients and carers helping academics to carry out research, through providing input into how research is designed, conducting interviews and focus groups, and helping to disseminate the findings. Patients and carers bring their lived experience to the project, and coupled with research skills, helps us

Comments on the vacuum in Social Care Since the 1959 Mental Health Act: Then and Now  Having unexpectedly arrived well into my ‘eighties,’ it seems timely to reflect on my personal experience of the mental health arena, past and present.In May 1959, when I opened the doors of Lancaster Lodge, Richmond, it was with the aim of providing a place

The Institute of Mental Health (IMH) will be hosting its Annual Research Day to highlight the work of the Institute’s doctoral candidates, Managed Innovation Networks (MINs), and early-career researchers (including research assistants, research fellows, and research-active clinicians and service users). There will be prizes for best oral presentati