Healthcare policy increasingly points towards more care in the community. The language is positive. Collaboration. Partnership. Co-production. Person-centred care. Recovery. But I wonder, do we really understand what community care looks like now? How can we improve something if we don’t properly understand its starting point? Community care is not just a policy. It is parents lying …
A Family’s Journey Through Mental Illness, Loss and a System That Failed Him There are moments in life that divide time into “before” and “after.” For my family, that moment came when we lost my brother to suicide. Years later, we are still living with the consequences. Not only the grief of …
I was just navigating the system on my own. No-one explained the risks to me. When it gets to crisis, it’s too late. Mrs Calocane’s testimony is devastating to hear. But are we truly appreciating the cumulative effect of years of a loving mother trying to navigate an opaque, fragmented system? This is not …
I didn’t find out until after my daughter died that she had taken six overdoses in the weeks before her death and asked for help. I didn’t know she had phoned the crisis team to tell them she had tried to take her life. I didn’t know that she had …
I get jealous sometimes. The freedom my friends have when talking about their children. Justifiably proud mother hens, their pride gentle and understated. No one is judging them. No one is second-guessing. If they walked up to a stranger and said, “My children are wonderful,” it would probably be met with a …
Since working with Making Families Count, writing blogs, presenting webinars, helping to run training sessions, even appearing on the radio, people have said to me they don’t know how I do it, even that I am brave to do so. That surprises me. I don’t consider myself the slightest bit …
This year marks our 10th anniversary. We are reflecting on a decade of dedicated work to improve family engagement and patient safety across health and social care. Explore stories, insights, and reflections from our members and learn more about our journey: Our 10-Year Journey
Following the tragic death of my daughter-in-law, I began to get involved in various initiatives to support clinicians to improve mental health services, and learn from deaths by overcoming the barriers to meaningful engagement of family and friends’ carers. I joined Making Families Count, and met with other family members and health …
On November 2nd, 2017, I was transported instantly from the bubble I call my life, to a completely different bubble. My new, hugely unwelcome bubble happened when my grandson Harry was born at East Kent hospitals and made extremely unwell by abstract poor care. The new bubble demanded completely different …