Wedgwood House

Think it's my 5th stay on the ward but everything has changed. Staff are so much more friendlier and helpful, I feel safe. It's like a different place.

My dad had a mental health act assessment at west suffolk at Wedgwood where he was discharged on day 2 of a 3 day assessment. 2 practitioners saw that he was not taking his bipolar medication yet he has been discharged back to his GP. He is a vulnerable adult due to his self neglect and severe mental health tendencies. They have been made clear that his physical and mental health is deteriorating and will not get better unless there is a hospital stay. This is not good enough and i will be doing everything i can to get my dad the help that he needs. He is homeless, doesn't wash or shower, doesn't eat properly which affects his type 2 diabetes. He is blind in one eye where he got attacked when he was last severely manic and is going blind in the other eye due to his poor eating patterns. He spends all of his money as quickly as he can so he has no money for food. He is having delusions and i made it clear to the crisis team how bad he is and the GP also agreed with me. This is unacceptable.

My son was admitted to Wedgwood House, I found the staff were supportive and friendly to him. They always checked with my son before speaking to me and giving any details of how he was. On Christmas Day we were downstairs in a visitors’ room where the staff would come up and down the stairs taking things back up to the ward for us when ever we asked.

22year old had mental break/ psychosis admitted under section 2

The carers in this place are top notch, good at their job and nice people. Unfortunately at a management level the place is beyond a joke. Lies to patients are commonplace, no-one really understands their treatment or care plan and most patients inside are confused and very down.

one good thing is not smoking as this caused problems with times etc, to go out ,

My dad has suffered a mental breakdown due to depression and is currently having episodes of psychosis. We're not kept in communication at all about what's going on with his treatment or notified about meetings, or his medication and treatment plan. One meeting had to be rearranged because they never bothered to contact my mum, the latest meeting was arranged behind my mum's back!!! Where they decided to allow my dad to visit home as it's "beneficial" to his health, despite him trying to hang himself and talking about suicide on an extended day visit.
He's suicidal and has attempted this twice, not to mention other forms of self harm.
He threatens to kill himself every time something doesn't go his way.
We're outraged. Absolutely disgusted at the lack of family support and keeping us involved. We shouldn't have to spend hours chasing on the phone to find out what they're doing with him.
Being told "Oh We're allowing him a home visit" JUST over 24hrs in advance, so we have no preparation and now extremely stressed out because we know as soon as it comes to taking him back to hospital, he'll harm himself or threaten to kill himself.

Poor meds distribution. Under professional consultant, lack of staff and security issues with certain members of staff lack of 1-1 support no welcome pack no showing round no interaction with patients most vulnerable who need extra support broken agreements

The consultant was cruel, cold and confrontational. I had a MHA assessment and was told in response to expressing finding opening up to strangers difficult I was told threateningly that if I didn’t talk he’d call my parents (unsure about the legality of this as I’m an adult and was only on a 5(2)) and ‘make decisions you don’t like’, in all my interactions with him I was made to feel like my life didn’t matter and he didn’t care about me or want to help me. I was left to self harm for hours on end and treated like a misbehaving child, guilt tripped and told ‘some patients are unwell and don’t want to hear this’ when I was extremely distressed, I developed a haematoma as a result of this. This unit is shockingly poor and I was made to feel horrible about myself throughout.

Self opinionated, arrogant and rude Consultant who talked down to both me and the patient. Nursing staff who found it funny that food was not available for a patient. Notes lost. Messages not passed on. GP advice ignored. Pressure put on relatives. Shocking. Disgusting and not good enough.
I ma not joking when i say prison would have been a better option.