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been attending the hospital every Monday and Thursday
morning, visiting as a matter of routine, admission wards,
and going to other wards when a specific request by a
Consultant Psychiatrist was made. The Mental Welfare
Officers have the use of a room to write notes and see
patients, and every facility has been extended to them.
Case discussions with the Consultant Psychiatrists are of
great value in, order to clarify treatment goals and focus
social work help where it is most needed. The after-care
referrals, amounting to 96 for last six months of 1965,
have been channelled through the Hospital Senior
Psychiatric Social Worker, Mr. Hayter, who has introduced
improvements into the referral system.
A meeting reviewing the liaison and after-care
arrangements between the Hospital and the Community
Care Services will be held in the hospital in October, 1966.
(b) (i) Links with the Ingrebourne Centre at St. George's
Hospital
In April, 1965, first links with the Centre were established,
and since May of that year, the psychiatric social
worker and mental welfare officers have been responsible
for working with a group of discharged patients from the
Centre (see below—Ardleigh Green Group). Also, a number
of meetings between the staff of the Centre and the
representatives of the M.O.H. were held and in order to
effect closer co-operation between the Mental Health Services
and the Centre. Two discharged patients were
placed into the Council's mental after-care hostel, and
regular participation of mental welfare officers in groupwork
with the senior citizens at the Centre was planned to
start in January 1966.
(b) (ii) Ardleigh Green Group
Groupwork is directed towards giving people a constructive
living experience of membership in a group so
that they may develop further and adjust better as individuals,
and be better able to contribute to the life of
the community. A group, and particularly a group of
fellow sufferers, can very effectively help minimise, control,
or resolve individual problems in a social setting
where expression of strong feelings and open discussion
seems easier than in any other setting; often by painful
examination, men and women help one another gain insight
into their exaggerated feelings, response, etc.
The Ardleigh Green Group which meets twice a week
(2 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays) at the Ardleigh
Community Centre, is attended by discharged
patients from the Ingrebourne Centre, all suffering from
residual deep-seated neuroses.
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