At Ludlow Street Healthcare every person is treated as an individual with his or her own beliefs and needs. With your involvement we will draw up an individualised plan of care for you, enabling you to be actively involved in your own recovery, rehabilitation or care action plan.
Where some service users may find it difficult to take a personal involvement in developing their own care plan, we actively involve families, care co-ordinators and advocates.
Whichever service they are at, we aim to provide all our service users with a high quality of life by respecting six basic values and setting ourselves six clear aims:
Frequently asked questions
We have listed some of the questions we get asked most frequently by service users and their families. If there is anything else you would like to know, just email us at info@lshealthcare.co.uk.
Who will care for me?
All our staff join us because they care passionately about helping our service users get the most out of their lives. They are a funny, diverse bunch as you might expect.
Depending on the service location, service users may have their own primary care team or be buddied up with a key worker.
With your help (or the help of your family, care co-ordinator or Advocate) the care team or key worker will draw up an individualised recovery, rehabilitation or care plan for you. This will enable you (or them) to be actively involved in your own personalized programme.
Additionally, we have a large team of other specialist staff who are available as needed such as Psychologists and Psychiatrists, Education Specialists, Occupational Therapists and Dietitians.
All our staff are fully trained, receive a comprehensive two-week long induction when they join us and attend regular additional training courses.
Will I have my own room?
We want to help you create a space you will feel comfortable and secure in.
Every service user has their own room, and we encourage and support everyone to personalise their rooms to reflect their own tastes and interests.
What sort of food is available?
Beechwood College and all our hospitals cater for a wide range of tastes as well as cultural and dietary needs. And we’re always open to new suggestions to improve the menus!
Service users in our smaller community homes are encouraged to be actively involved in deciding on the weekly menus, or shopping for and cooking their own meals.
How will I spend my time?
Everyone has differing needs, so everyone’s day is unique to them.
Each service user will have a completely different daily plan incorporating a variety of therapeutic, social and leisure sessions.
For example, patients in our neuro-psychiatry hospital may attend movement classes, spend time in the Memory or Sensory Rooms, or enjoy one of the monthly pet therapy sessions.
Whilst service users on recovery or rehabilitation pathways might spend their time developing life and vocation skills, enjoying activities in the community, or improving their confidence as they transition into the community and towards greater independence.
Residential students at our Further Education College (SEN) may spend the day in educational classes, and their evenings and weekends enjoying leisure activities and outings.
Can I see my family?
Of course. We encourage all our services users to maintain regular contact with family members. We have homely, private spaces set aside for family visits in all our services and also arrange to support home visits as appropriate.
Do any of your service users get put in seclusion?
We never use seclusion. Although some of our service users can have very challenging behavior, we prefer to train our staff to spot these incidents early and use techniques to avoid or diffuse potential incidents.
Do you use prone restraint?
Again, an emphatic No. We do have to physically intervene sometimes to ensure the safety of our service users and staff, but we carefully record all incidents to ensure only appropriate restraint is used and to enable us to generate learnings which can then be used to develop new techniques to minimise future restraint.
We are a signatory to the Restraint Reduction Network and are proud to have been acknowledged for our innovative work in restraint reduction.
Who runs Ludlow Street Healthcare?
The organization was originally set-up by Jane Watkins, a mental health nurse, as a response to the lack of appropriate support for people with complex mental health needs.
Jane is now our Deputy Chairman and the organisation is run by a small Board of Directors dominated by health and education professionals, and all of whom are involved with the day-to-day care of our service users and see this as their No.1 priority. The successful person-centric, outcome-focused approach they have implemented has seen the organization grow to more than 1100 staff supporting more than 240 service users.
