A specialist mental health unit in Leicester for women experiencing severe and complex mental illness celebrated its first birthday with a party for staff and patients.

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s (LPT) six-bedroomed Griffin Ward provides psychiatric intensive care for women needing the highest level of psychiatric care.

Its multi-disciplinary team of nursing, medical, psychology and occupational therapy staff provide care close to home for women from Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland who would previously have had to travel to other parts of the country.

Since it opened in 2017 the unit, part of LPT’s Herschel Prins Centre on Leicester’s Glenfield Hospital site, has had 47 admissions.

Staff and patients gathered together for a celebration party in dining room at the unit, which underwent refurbishment before its opening last year. The patients created bright decorations for the event, including a striking tablecloth, decorated with colourful handprints and positive feedback on their experience on the ward.

Ward sister Beth Francomb said: “In our first year we have grown together as a team to deliver high quality care to our patients. Feedback from patients, family and carers has been really positive.

“For our patients, being treated near to home has allowed them to maintain contact with friends and family. It has also meant that community links and relationships with  community teams have been maintained. The ward has become a real community with staff and patients supporting everybody in their recovery. This is evidenced by our Sunday cooking club where patients and staff work together to produce a homecooked meal on a Sunday.”

As well as giving women timely access to PICU services, the unit enables patients to maintain close contact with their friends, family and local community services, which means patients have better continuity of care and take less time to recover enough to transfer to a general ward ahead of returning home.

Commissioned by East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) , the service also provides more accessible care for women from Derbyshire under an agreement with the CCG there. You can watch a short video made just before the new service launched in 2017 on LPT’s YouTube channel.

NOTES TO EDITORS

  1. Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) provides community health, mental health and learning disabilities services for the one million people living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. We have a budget in excess of £275 million and employ approximately 5,500
    staff. For more information visit: www.leicspart.nhs.uk
  2. Raising Health is our registered charity (number 1057361) which raises funds to support LPT’s excellent care initiatives, equipment and innovations which go above and beyond core NHS provision, to enhance the experience of our patients, service users and staff.
    www.raisinghealth.org.uk

For further information contact: Sheila Ashton, communications manager, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, Tel: 0116 295 0042, E: sheila.ashton@leicspart.nhs.uk