What does Recovery mean in Forensic Services – Conference Update

On the 18th January, an excellent conference entitled ‘What does Recovery mean in Forensic Services’ was held jointly between the Trust and Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH).

More than 100 people attended from the East Midlands and across the country.  At the heart of the conference, chaired by Professor Clair Chilvers and Professor Conor Duggan, was an exploration of the difficulties of enabling people who use forensic services to have autonomy over their lives within a system that is by its very nature restrictive because of the need to protect the public. 

The core presentation was a question and answer session in which Dr Adrian Brown, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Rampton Hospital, posed a number of questions around the complexities of the situation to Dr Tim McInerney, a consultant forensic psychiatrist working in a medium secure unit in South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, who had previously been a consultant at Broadmoor.

There were excellent presentations from a number of experts in the Recovery Model including Professors Jed Boardman (SCMH) and Gerard Drennan, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Sussex Partnership Foundation NHS Trust.

James Wooldridge who describes himself as a ‘service avoider’ from Devon and Simon McKenna, a service user from Nottinghamshire gave inspirational insights into their experiences.  Both described their journeys using the Recovery Model, from being patients in secure services to returning to a normal life in the community.  For both, the turning point was when they felt able to work alongside those treating them as partners, rather than fighting them.  

 A series of workshops debated the main issues, answering a series of questions on the use of the term ‘Recovery’ and how the concept can be utilised.  The workshops came up with a number of answers with many overlapping themes. 

 Closing the conference were presentations on the way forward and next steps locally from Dr Mike Harris, and Associate Professor Julie Repper, and nationally from Professor Gerard Drennan and Professor Geoff Shepherd. 

 Locally, a steering group will be led by Dr Steve Milne who organised the conference, to take ideas and channel actions from across the forensic services in our trust to help encourage others to utilise the model.   Julie Repper identified how this would fit in with the overall Trust strategy.  Geoff and Gerard welcomed the opportunities of our forensic services (the largest in the country) working alongside some of the smaller services which have already used Recovery.

 Overall, this was an excellent conference which helped to dispel some of the myths around the use of the Recovery Model in forensic psychiatry and to give support to those who wish to take it further.  It promises an exciting future. 

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