Greater expectations - revisited
Introduction
This report provides an overview of the Mental Welfare Commission's visits to individuals receiving care and treatment in mental health rehabilitation and continuing care wards throughout Scotland. These wards typically provide care and treatment to people with severe and enduring mental illnesses.
Throughout June, July and August 2008 we visited a total of 159 people in 45 wards across 21 hospital sites. Our visits were announced so that people who had particular concerns could arrange to meet us.
We asked people we met on the day if they would be willing to complete a questionnaire. Our questionnaire was designed to capture individual views and experiences of:
-
Privacy, dignity and identity
-
Safety
-
Care planning
-
Involvement
-
Quality of the environment
-
Management of funds
-
Activities
-
Physical healthcare
-
Consent to treatment
Where possible, we also asked to meet
-
someone on each ward who had no friends or family to support them
-
someone on each ward whose money was being managed by the service
-
someone who came from a black or minority ethnic background
As well as meeting individuals we also scrutinised the records held about their care and treatment. We talked to a staff member on each ward and asked the same questions we asked on our questionnaire.
