Recently the For Me Provider Collaborative held its first ever Best Practice Conference … and it was an enormous success!
Months of planning and preparation led to an exciting, stimulating and enjoyable day. Professionals and patients from across the network’s secure mental health and learning disability services came together to share their work through presentations, posters and discussions.
The conference’s packed agenda featured two keynote speeches. The first was given by David Brindle, the former Public Services Editor of The Guardian. He kicked the day off with a thought-provoking talk about the media’s role in shaping public perceptions of mental distress and the minority of patients who pose a risk to the public. This generated a lively Q&A session, and a lot of discussion followed. One attendee said, “it was so interesting to hear David’s perspective on a world so familiar to us – the media has such an influence on both patients’ and mental healthcare professionals’ experiences…I’ll be thinking about what he said for a while”.
Later, Dr. Liz Walsh, UK Professional Lead Nurse for Justice and Forensic Nursing, and Abi Bartlett, Chair of Nursing in Justice and Forensic Healthcare Forum spoke. They discussed Trauma-Informed Care, sharing insights from the work they are doing as part of a four nations RCN project to promote the approach within the criminal justice and secure network. Attendees fed back that they felt their keynote was informative and engaging, showing excellent understanding of the workforce. Several shared that they had found this to be the most useful thing to take away from the day and will be sharing learnings with their local teams.
Outside the keynote sessions, most of the day was spent hearing from Providers across the Network as they presented their innovative projects and programmes aimed at improving patient and staff experiences. Themes included involvement and co-production, transitions, reducing restrictive practice and therapeutic approaches.
We also heard about work being undertaken to address clinical complexities in secure care, to highlight vocational and educational opportunities for patients, and to promote staff wellbeing and restorative practice in secure mental health services.
Reflecting on the event, Rami El-Shirbiny, Clinical Director for the collaborative commented “By bringing together experts and our healthcare professionals, we create opportunities for learning, networking, and mutual support, which ultimately benefit both our staff and the patients we serve.”
The event enabled teams to come together and share the best practices and innovations they are undertaking in our units with the aim of improving secure mental health care for our patients and staff.
Karen Drabble, Associate Service Director of the For Me Provider Collaborative commented “This was the first conference that the collaborative has hosted for members of the network. We are all looking forward to continuing to use opportunities like this to enhance the care we provide for adults in secure mental health services.”
April 2025
