The Tale of the Jewel Merchants – a parable for our times
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
This parable was written a couple of years ago about the experience and expertise of Patient Leaders. It seems perhaps more widely applicable now. — Those of us, unfortunate, weakened, damaged and fallen from grace were banished to the harsh and arid Valley of Despair. There, we crawled alone to find caves in which we could live our days and suffer through the cold nights. We were changed, frightened and alone. What we had hoped to be, we could no longer be. What we could do, we could no longer do. Who we were, was no longer who we would be. We were refugees of mind, body and land. Those of us ..read more
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Patient Leadership is Dead – Long Live Patient Leadership (a sideways look at Covid)
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
Rather than reinforcing our reverence for the heroic – our regression to applauding the tough guys who sweat it out on the frontline – this virus might serve to amplify our common vulnerability, fallibility and suffering. But also the jewels of wisdom and insight that comes from having been in the caves of suffering. Lockdown can unlock our human potential. In many senses, this crisis is a societal macrocosm of the individual lived experience of being affected by life-changing illness, injury or disability. That is not to say that this virus has equalised humanity. It hits the poorest hardest ..read more
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Coronavirus & OCD
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
This guest post is by Steph. It was previously published on her blog site. If you would like to write a guest blog, please get in touch. — CORONAVIRUS! It’s all anyone can talk about these days. Understandably so, as it’s a very serious and very scary pandemic. From what I understand, if you do catch it, it is not as much similar to catching the Flu, but more similar to a severe Pneumonia. This genuinely frightens me. I am doing my best to self-isolate as much as possible. My managers have allowed me to work from home, and I only have to come into work two days a week. On those days, I can als ..read more
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Virus and Verse – how Covid-19 brings to light the human dilemma
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
A virus – a sub-microscopic infectious agent – is shifting how we connect to ourselves, our fellow human beings, society and the earth. Such a small big thing. Others comment on the science. Or on the ideological narrative – which nation or leader is right or wrong about herd immunity theories versus immediate lockdown and the relationship between science, national culture and political decision-making. Others comment on the health service – whether it has been well-led and collaborative in terms of shifting quickly to a crisis-enabled urgent care model, or its failure in terms of protective e ..read more
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Learning How To Look – poems from Wales
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
I have come back from a writing workshop in Wales to a different world (of course). I hope you like some of these poems. I am a great believer in words as a way of connecting to ourselves, each other and the planet. So, I hope that at least some of your time in the next few weeks and months is about that reconnection. Keep safe. Be gentle with yourselves and each other. p.s. My new book, my first full collection of poetry, ‘The Rare Bird Collection’ is out in May from Cinnamon Press. ______ The Household of Three Flies I am empty in a household of three flies and a kettle that repeatedly boils ..read more
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Tosh – No more professionally-led inquiries
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
Last week, another report. The privileged elite assuming authority and power to proclaim insight for why I stood in front of an oncoming van. Tosh. To their questions. To their answers to their own questions. To their ‘facts’ and to their reading of what needs to be done. Tosh, After reading a 68 page report on suicide. Tosh, to recommendations to reduce suicide by altering the physical environment. (The van, remember? The van came round the corner) Can you know why I stood in the road? Can you know that I would have taken my life in a ‘high place’ or a ‘low place’? By a road? Or a track? From ..read more
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You Were So Good, So – poems from the psych ward
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
  I have been asked to speak at the Mind, State and Society conference next Tuesday. They would like me to provide a flavour of what it was like to go through the psych system in the late 80s and early 90s – an era of huge change in mental health policy and practice. This was when the Victorian Asylums were closing, Care in the Community began, Prozac was born and Community Mental Health Teams were spawned. I will intersperse the talk with some of the poems below. These chart a little of my journey – from an angst-ridden Jewish teen with a mother who had been a kinder-transport refugee, throug ..read more
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Patient Leadership Could Help Solve Workforce Issues
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
The Patient and Public Engagement industry has been sidetracked. For many years, patients, users and carers have been led to believe that their voice matters. And that by taking part in focus groups, telling emotional stories at conferences and being a ‘representative’ they will make a difference and that this translates to being ‘at the centre of the NHS’. I have long argued that these transactional engagement approaches are outmoded, preserve the status quo and buffer us from power. See for example this article  At the HSJ Summit on Mental Health, I was reminded of two further things. Firstl ..read more
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From Job-Job to Rock n’Roll-Role – The Sussex Model of Patient Partnership
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
We have nine paid and supported Patient and Carer Partners (PCP) at Sussex MSK Partnership (Central). This, in addition to bespoke engagement work and gathering and learning from patient experience data. Yesterday, I spoke to one of the nine: “I was in the waiting room – was I a patient or a patient-partner? I was now thinking about improvements that can be made. I then went with a friend to another hospital where we seemed powerless and told him about the patient and carer partner role… he was fascinated”. I suggested she write a blog and that this is used to discuss the role at our next meet ..read more
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The Necessary Twilight
Future Patient | Healthcare Blog
by davidngilbert
4y ago
I am starting to write a book that will include my psychiatric experiences in the early nineties, a time that also heralded vast change in mental health policy and practice. The book will interweave the personal and the political, and will consist of prose and poetry fragments. This is my first attempt at writing a fragment. I would welcome any feedback. Please be warned. This is not easy reading. —- I went to bed as early as I could, sometimes before the night shift at eight arrived. Each time I knew that rest would not come. That to go to bed early would make things worse, the nights more in ..read more
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