View report page

69
RYDAL MOUNT HOSTEL
The long awaited short term Hostel—15 places—for rehabilitation
of mentally ill opened in March, 1968, and it was thought
useful to give a rather fuller account of it than customary. Most of
the material in this chapter has been contributed by Mr. A. G.
Ball, Senior Mental Welfare Officer, Beckenham and Penge area,
who has the responsibility for covering the social side of the work.
Purpose of the Hostel
The short stay hostel can be seen as the most effective way of
bridging the gap between the demands of the psychiatric hospital
and the community when there is no responsible relative able or
willing to undertake the task. A hostel of this nature is ideally
suitable to wean individual patients who have adapted to prolonged
hospitalisation or to the distortions of inter-family stresses
to the demands of living and working in the community. Of course
not all long stay or homeless patients need the help of a short stay
hostel. Many of these patients can move directly into the community
provided there is good liaison between the hospital and
local authority, ensuring that the help of appropriate supportive
services is immediately available.
Selection of Residents
With very little practical experience on which to base our
criteria for selection, there seemed immediately to be two main
areas of danger to be studied. On the one hand, we could be so
selective that the only patients we would accept were those who
could probably manage without the expensive provision of a professionally
staffed hostel. On the other hand, we could indiscriminately
accept almost all those referred, with the inevitable
result that the hostel would become silted up with residents
incapable of graduating to unsupervised accommodation.
An important criteria for admission to the hostel is that
potential residents must be ready to return to their previous employment
or be working from the hospital before being admitted
to the hostel. It has never been felt that it was the hostel's function
to rehabilitate patients for work. Not only must the hospital treat
the clinical symptoms effectively, but also establish the patient in
daily employment either within the hospital or outside, returning
to the hospital for the night. Alternatively the hospital should introduce
him to a daily pattern of constructive activity, i.e. sheltered
workshop or industrial therapy. By doing this, we know that
potential residents are at a point in their rehabilitation where they
can cope with some of the demands which will be made on them
in the community.
The majority of the residents selected have been from late
adolescence to middle age. One of the main reasons for this is that