Mental does not mean mad (Highfield Adolescent Inpatient Unit)

Member Name: goosey

Product:	Highfield Adolescent Inpatient Unit
Date:	02/07/09 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Highly successful

Disadvantages: none

The Highfield Adolescent Inpatient Unit is an 16 bed, purpose built psychiatric unit, adjoining the lovely old Warneford psychiatric hospital at Headington in Oxford.

Oxford, is known as 'The City Of Dreaming Spires,' and is reputed to have as many churches as it does colleges. This, I have not managed to verify despite spending 27 years working in this beautiful and ancient city.

Most large cities boasts one or two hospitals, but at my last count Oxford has one private and seven NHS hospitals; two of which specialise in psychiatry - Littlemore Hospital and The Warneford hospital.

Littlemore Hospital, as its name suggests is situated at Littlemore in Oxford, The Warneford Hospital, is situated about two to three miles away, at Headington, Oxford, both are teaching hospitals. The psychiatric school, for training nurses, being housed at Littlemore.
In the main, Littlemore hospital was for the more long term and elderly patient. Its two modern units, were for alcoholics and drug abuse patients, old, middle aged and the young.

It was then, a self sufficient unit having its own medical, carpentry, laundry and pathology facillities.
I worked,for about 9years, with one other Biomedical scientist and our lab cleaner, in the small pathology laboratory, where we dealt with blood tests on all new patients from both hospitals, as well as the Park Hospital for children. The interesting, and sometimes challenging part of the job was to meet, chat with and take blood samples from these patients. Including those patients at the adolescent unit.

The laboratory has since been closed down and I am sure, many of the wards have also been closed.

The Warneford, once, apparently, a private hospital, is for the treatment of all psychiatric illnesses suffered by adults of 18 years and older.

~~~~~THE HIGHFIELD ADOLESCENT UNIT>~~~~

As I said earlier, it is a purpose built unit attached to the Warneford Hospital.
Eight of the beds are allocated to male inpatients and eight to the females.
It has a modern look and feel to it, even though built back in the 60s, and a much less daunting prospect for the young adolescents needing hospitalisation. (No jangling of keys in locked doors.) It had a sort of home from home feel and being completely separate from the main hospital, there was no interchange of staff or patients between the two units.
Every teenager I talked with had settled easily into the unit, some were subdued, others, more talkative. It was always good to hear news of their progress from the staff.

~~~~SERVICE PROVIDED~~~~

I have seen it described as an eclectic psychiatric service. -Having looked up the meaning in the dictionary, I can now enlighten anyone, who, like myself until now, hadn't a clue what eclectic means.
An eclectic service means that ideas from a wide variety of sources are used in the treatment of the patients.
Day-patients and outpatients are also treated at this unit, as well as the inpatients.
Since there are such a variety of psychiatric disorders, treatment programmes, out of neccessity, are tailored to individual needs.

~~~~~DISORDERS TREATED~~~~~

The mind is a very complex, and little understood part of our being, held in a delicate balance of emotions, ranging from happiness to sorrow. However, when that balance is disturbed, and those normal emotions become extreme; psychiatric problems rear their ugly heads.
The most common, in adolescents, being the eating disorders, bulaemia and anorexia nervosa. Other disorders include obssessive-compulsive disorders, emotional disorders (breakdowns) and psychotic disorders such as Schizophrenia.

~~~~TREATMENTS AVAILABLE AT HIGHFIELD A UNIT~~~~

Before any treatment programme can be started, the patient is rigorously assessed by a highly specialised team of experts on the unit.
One or more of the therapies listed may be recommended, each patient is treated individually.

Among the available treatments are:
Medication - which is the use a wide variety of psychiatric drugs.
Occupational therapy - where part of the day is spent in a unit supplying simple tasks or recreational therapies.
Art therapy - where often problems are brought to the surface through expressions with paint.
Cognitive behavioural therapy - changing negative thoughts and ideas into positive ones.
Psychotherapy -which is a one to one patient with psychotherapist session
and finally
Family group therapy - where the patient's family and patient meet in a supervised group to discuss topics relating to their problems.

~~~~~~AGE RANGE OF PATIENTS~~~~~

The services provided by this unit are soley for teenagers from the ages of 13 to 17. Older patients are treated at the Warneford.
On average, their stay at the unit will be about 3 to 4 months, afterwhich they may continue as day-patients or outpatients until treatment is complete.

In summary:
The Highfield Adolescent Unit is a highly successful psychiatric unit, which aids the restoration of many teenager's mental balance, through one or more of a large variety of tried and tested therapies.

Summary: No one likes to be there, but in the end are glad they were.