Call it what you want, I’ll call it rape. By Wendy Copeland

Rape and sexual assault…. not words we thankfully use or hear every day, however like periods and menopause are finally words that are being talked about more and more openly. We still have a way to go though.

Rape and Sexual assault are finally being debated and discussed, in part thanks to high profile case like Operation Yewtree ,  #metoo  and the anti Trump woman’s marches. These big news stories have helped many survivors of rape and sexual assault come forward. Many of these are historic abuse and more than we care to imagine, are current.  And many more still stay silent.

I am glad to share that I have never experienced what it would feel like, I do however remember with clarity a near miss when I was a child, when my brother barged into the house I was visiting and saved my day…I’ve never told my brother this. I also recall in the summer of 1982 being on a Lothian No 44 bus going to Currie in my favourite Levi mini skirt, when a man felt it was his right to run his hand up my bare thigh…. he did not anticipate the screams of protest and profanities that my small frame at the time could produce . Sadly that mini skirt was binned… I felt violated and dirty and associated what I wore as a trigger. I know better now.

So what’s all this self indulgent disclosure got to do with the NHS Dumfries and Galloway?

The Scottish Government has set out its vision for consistent, person centred, trauma informed healthcare and forensic medical services, and access to recovery for anyone who has experienced rape or sexual assault in Scotland.

Health Improvement Scotland published 5 National Standards that sets out how local NHS boards are responsible for coordinating and delivering health care service for people following rape, sexual assault, or child sexual abuse and for meeting both health and support needs.

The standards cover the following areas:

• Leadership and governance
• Person centred trauma informed care
• Facilities for forensic examinations
• Education, training and clinical requirements
• Consistent documentation and data collection

There was some additional asks too, including relocation of forensic examinations out of a police setting, and locate into health.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway Forensic Health Suite will be located within our estates, and will be operational from May 19.  We are being guided by our local FMEs (Forensic Medical Examiners) Police Scotland, Sexual Health team, Public Protection, Scottish Government Taskforce and our local Rape Crisis team.

All our FME’s are trained in trauma informed care and we are working on a solution to ensure that survivors are examined by their gender of choice; this will also include an appropriately trained nurse being present during forensic examinations.

Once we have the physical space operational, we will develop local person centred recovery pathways, enabling survivors to choose at their own their pace, how to access easily, both health and psychological support locally. This will include access to immediate clinical needs and aftercare, and supporting survivors to access specialist provision for one-off advice and information, or support over time.

When this work landed on my desk I was nervous and felt out of my depth… I still do at times. However, I also feel excited and privileged to be involved in an area that impacts many and yet is still spoken in hushed terms or worse, never spoken about…

Wendy Copeland

Project Manager

Nithsdale Locality

 

Local Support

https://www.rape-crisis.org.uk/

https://www.victimsupportsco.org.uk/how-to-find-us/victim-support/victim-support-dumfries-galloway-2/

 

References:

Honouring the Lived Experience

https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/10/3324

Healthcare and Forensic Medical Services for People who have experienced Rape, sexual Assault, or Child Sexual Abuse: Children, Young People and Adults

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/person-centred_care/resources/sexual_assault_services.aspx

Healthcare and Forensic Medical Services for People who have experienced Rape, sexual Assault, or Child Sexual Abuse: Children, Young People and Adults

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/person-centred_care/resources/sexual_assault_indicators.aspx

 

 

 

 

Oh, The PLACEs You’ll Go! By Valerie White

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great PLACEs!

You’re off and away!

Since becoming a parent I have been quite amazed by the world of children’s literature and how so many books convey life affirming messages in simple text. Oh, The PLACEs You’ll Go! By Dr Seuss is one such book. For those of you who haven’t read it – and I recommend you do – this is a simple tale about the ups and downs of the journey through life and sows the seeds of the importance of being resilient and keeping going when things get tough. I am sure there are more complex interpretations out there but English was never my strong suit!

You may have noticed that I have highlighted PLACE in the title and that is because PLACE is the crux of this blog.

You would think that working in Public Health, understanding how PLACE affects our health and wellbeing is something I would totally get, and in theory I do, but it is only since we made our recent office move from the Crichton to Mountainhall that I have really and truly reflected on how PLACE and in particular our workPLACE affects our health and wellbeing.

What sparked this reflective mood – well quite frankly it was this – one day I marched (as I tend to do) – up the two flights of stairs in Mountainhall to second floor East and was truly taken aback by the fact that I was totally out of breath!

How could this be?

Well – when I thought about it the answer wasn’t really that complicated – being mum to two young kids, working full time, mostly sitting at a desk or attending meetings and living in a rural area where I use the car most of the time, my physical activity levels were pretty non-existent.

Something had to change!

So following my wake up call. I have made up my own little goals, that I try to achieve each week – parking a short distance from work and walking in the rest of the way, walking at lunchtime, walking over to someone’s office for a quick chat rather than hitting the send button on nhs.net. I don’t always achieve what I’ve set out to do but it is now becoming more of a routine – and anyone who knows me knows I love routine and tick lists!

So how has Mountainhall the PLACE helped – well it’s much brighter in the office so you can see how nice the day is outside (it really does rain less than you think!). When I go out for a wander I see lots of people from other Directorates, and colleagues often have a nice smile or a few kind words to say or you can catch somebody for that quick word rather than sending another e-mail. The walk to the bathroom and using the stairs also means I do more steps in Mountainhall than I did in the Crichton.

So not only is my increased physical activity at work helping my physical health, it also helps me to connect more with colleagues and quite frankly I am much cheerier at work than I have ever been before.

So you see our PLACEs can affect us in so many ways – often ones we don’t even realise – and that is why it is so important that PLACEs – be that our workPLACEs or our communityPLACEs – are environment that supports people to adopt healthier lifestyles or make healthier choices. I know that myself and fellow colleagues in Public Health are sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) seen as the fun police – “that Public Health lot – they don’t want biscuits at meeting or traybakes at study days, or chocolates given out as tokens of appreciation – why can’t they get a life and live a little”. This isn’t a direct quote from anyone but I know you get my drift.

As I hope this blog is demonstrating myself and colleagues working in Public Health are not all perfect but we do all have a common aspiration that prevention is better than cure and we try to promote and model this. It is not easy – you should see the argy bargy that goes on in my head when faced with a lovely traybake or biscuit at a meeting – but most of time – particularly because my specialist area is dentistry the angel wins – frequent intakes of sugar being a significant risk factor for tooth decay. But, be rest assured that when I go to my book group I enjoy the sweet treats a much as anyone.

The key to most things in life is moderation, but sadly in terms of our diet and physical activity levels we as a society are not doing too well on either count and this is often because our PLACEs and our culture don’t make it easy for us.

But folks – here’s the thing – improving Public Health is not just my business or the business of those working in the specialist public health field it is everybody’s business. If we choose to leave a preventive approach to those working solely in Public Health – we are pretty stuffed, and the levels of chronic conditions, overweight and obesity and Type 2 Diabetes will absolutely overwhelm our services.

It all to difficult and complicated – its our culture to eat sweets and cakes – I hear you cry!

Well it doesn’t need to be – for a start each of us individually can think about actions we could take/conversations we could have to make our workplace healthier, rewards and appreciation can be demonstrated by things other than sweets and cakes, if we get hungry at meetings could fruit rather than biscuits be available – could we do some gentle yoga moves just before the meeting hits the really boring bit – that could actually even be quite amusing, what is available in vending machines when no other catering is available – does this support healthy choices? do I slope off to the vending machine for a chocolate fix mid afternoon when a quick walk might be a better pick me up? Could we actually have a walking meeting rather than sitting in a stuffy meeting room?

There is some really great work going on supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our workforce so lets also make our workPLACEs a Great PLACE that supports us to make healthier choices as we navigate this wonderful journey of life.

So……

be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,

you’re off to Great PLACEs!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So ……..get on your way!

 

For more information on holding healthy meetings, hints and tips on how to increase your physical activity levels at work. Please see the links below.

Healthy Ireland Meeting Guidelines – https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/healthwellbeing/healthy-ireland/publications/meeting-guidelines-final.pdf

WHO – Planning healthy and sustainable meetings –  http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/373172/healthy-meetings-eng.pdf?ua=1

NHS website – https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/get-active-your-way/#

And if you have 5 more minutes the link below is a youtube video of the reading of Oh, The PLACEs You’ll Go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6ZeZA6wF-k

 

Valerie White is Consultant in Dental Public Health and Public Health in NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

 

Are we aware yet? by Julie Garton

This week is Dementia Awareness Week in Scotland and Monday saw the Alzheimer Scotland Conference rise to the occasion with over 800 delegates descending on the Edinburgh International Conference Centre for a day which never fails to inspire and remind those of us who work in dementia care what a privilege it is to do what we do. With the theme of:

Prevent now, Care today, Cure tomorrow

There was a range of sessions looking at the importance of brain health, research and living well with dementia, delivered positively whilst never taking away the devastating impact that dementia can have on families.

On a day where Donald Trump landed and considering the state of the political landscape, it was heartening to see this headline on day one of Dementia Awareness Week and even more heartening to read a balanced and factual article.

The prevalence of dementia is increasing worldwide, with a predicted increase from 35.6 million in 2010 to 115.4 million in 2050 – someone is diagnosed every 3 seconds and led the English Health Department to say that:

‘among the over 55’s, dementia is feared more than any other illness’

 

But what if we could do something about this? Whilst we can’t do anything about our age or the genes we inherit from our parents, there are factors that can increase or reduce our risk of developing dementia in later life.

Evidence exists that depression, Type 2 Diabetes, smoking, mid life hypertension, mid life obesity, physical inactivity and low educational attainment can increase our risk of developing dementia in later life.

What’s good for your heart is good for your brain

Eating a Mediterranean style diet, keeping socially engaged, learning new things, sleeping well, alcohol in moderation and being physically active can be regarded as good things that we can do to reduce our risk and act as protective factors as we age.

But it’s also recognised that the public need to be more aware about how a health promotion approach can have a significant impact on dementia.

Stigma and discrimination still exists in our communities and care services and although for around ten years, dementia awareness education has been delivered in a variety of ways by a wide range of providers but there is still some way to go.

It was heartening to hear Claire Haughey, Minister for Mental Health and Henry Simmons, Chief Executive recognise the impact and value  of Dementia Champions and Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultants, read our Annual Report here, on the progress thats been made so far. Dementia Champions keep updated by attending a yearly update, accessing the Champions closed Facebook page, and knowing who to contact for advice and support, but it is a challenge for other staff across health and social services to keep abreast of what’s going on.

Helen Moores Poole, Speech and Language Therapist with the IDEAS Team has some tips on keeping up to date with what’s happening in dementia care.

‘You can complete the Dementia Informed level of the Promoting Excellence Framework  http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/home/portals-and-topics/dementia-promoting-excellence/framework/about-the-framework.aspx and move onto Dementia Skilled level of the Promoting Excellence Framework as a next step, but staying aware can be really difficult when you have a million and one demands on your time and you’re a busy clinician. Staying up to date and current is a continuous process, and you can quickly become out of date, particularly in the field of dementia research, thoughts and campaigning. New discoveries are happening all the time, for example a new form of dementia ‘Late’ was discovered only last month. Find out more here.

Social Media is a great way to stay current and informed with what’s going on, to network and link in with professionals both within and without your specialist field. Building up your digital base means that when you have a couple of minutes to spare you can catch up with new ideas; it’s great to dip in and out of. If you’re a Facebook user we try to curate the best of what’s available on the IDEAS Facebook page, our focus is particularly on managing distress and what’s happening in D&G.

For bite size info and links, nothing beats Twitter and I regularly forward tweets to my work email to forward onto people! Here are some of our top tips for people to follow:

 

• Wendy Mitchell, Agnes Houston, the Scottish Dementia Working Group and Dementia Diaries are all people living with dementia who blog and campaign. Their blogs are often bite size, quick, witty and insightful and as a clinician I often work with people at the end of their journey, but it’s great to get a perspective from someone at a different point.
• The Alzheimer Scotland Nurse Consultants and AHPs working in dementia have their own groups.
• For an insight into the views of carers, try Tide or Dementia Carers Count.
• For research news Alzheimer Research UK and University of Exeter’s WHEALD study Prof Clive Ballard.
• For Scottish policy.
• Or for the Scottish Delirium Association

Dumfries & Galloway has over 3000 people currently living with dementia and we have the same challenges as the rest of Scotland in encouraging people who are worried to go to their GP, but this Dementia Awareness Week has made me increasingly optimistic that even if a cure is some way away, we are making progress, and thats good for us as individuals, for the people living with dementia who come into our services, our families and colleagues.

So are we aware yet?

Not quite, there is still an awareness gap, a knowledge gap, stigma and fear of this disease doesn’t help us when we are worried about our memory to step forward and seek help.

Please show your support in any of the following ways:

1. Join Alzheimer Scotland https://www.alzscot.org/
2. Become a Dementia Friend https://www.dementiafriends.org.uk/register-digital-friend
3. Sign up to Dementia Research at https://www.joindementiaresearch.nihr.ac.uk/
4. Do Dementia Informed and/or Skilled through Learnpro

And a final plea from me to do something good for yourself — get a Power of Attorney! https://www.mygov.scot/power-of-attorney/

Julie Garton, Alzheimer Scotland, Dementia Nurse Consultant – jgarton@nhs.net

Follow me on Twitter @gartju27

Helen Moores-Poole, Speech and Language Therapist, IDEAS Team

 

24 hour Dementia Helpline

Freephone 0808 808 3000

Making sure nobody faces dementia alone

Julie Garton is an Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Nurse Consultant for NHS Dumfries and Galloway