Dear supporters
We thought you’d like to hear about the latest developments at Mildmay Mission Hospital.
Building on the success of our Step-down Medical Care Pathway for people who are homeless or rough sleeping, in April 2022 we are pleased to launch our new REBUILD Pathway – offering post-detox rehabilitation care for the same cohort of patients.
We are now admitting patients who are recovering from substance abuse following detox treatment at acute centres in London that we have partnered with - units like the Addiction Clinical Care Suite for homeless people at Guys and St. Thomas’s Hospital.
Our multidisciplinary clinical team has expert knowledge of the progression and treatment of disease, including disorders associated with substance (drug and alcohol) misuse. This new Pathway is designed to restore patients’ independence and facilitate their motivation toward recovery. We liaise with external organisations such as inpatient detox facilities, rehabilitation units, homeless hostels, community drug and alcohol teams, community mental health teams and homeless pathways teams in relation to each individual patient, ensuring that each discharge is planned carefully with the patient’s input and consent and that patients continue to access the best possible support, dependent on their individual circumstances.
Our Admissions Manager, Housing Officer and Social Worker, in particular, have well-established links with relevant agencies. Our Substance Misuse Recovery Worker is supported by our key partner Resolve, a charitable organisation based in Hertfordshire with extensive experience working with people who are recovering from substance misuse and people who are homeless. You will find more detail about this service on our hospital website here.
On a lighter note, at the end of March, we attended the 2022 Health Service Journal Partnership Awards Ceremony to find out if we'd won the award for Best Not for Profit Working in Partnership with the NHS.
The awards recognise the most effective collaborations with the NHS, and we were delighted to find out earlier this year that we were finalists in this category for our Step-down Homeless Medical Care Pathway, launched 2 years ago at the start of the Pandemic.
Geoff Coleman, our CEO, summed up the experience, "I was delighted to spend yesterday evening at the awards ceremony, joined by some of the amazing people who have been a key part of this journey for us. We were so proud to be among the finalists and whilst we didn’t come away with the top prize ( GM Active CIC & GM Cancer alliance - Greater Manchester Prehab4Cancer and recovery programme were the deserving winners), to have reached this point in just two years is an amazing achievement…
… I have no doubts that there will be other awards to follow this one, but it was so nice to go out to an event with a group of colleagues and socialise with over a thousand other people. We may not be quite back to normal (will we ever be), but this gave us the chance to relax among people who are not just colleagues but very much family. Thank you to you all." (See our post about the event here).
Thank you to all our supporters for sticking with us. While we are not fighting for survival right now, that risk will always remain (we have contracts in place until March 2023), but in the meantime, we are working hard to develop our services and consolidate our position at the centre of important new healthcare initiatives which support the NHS.