"Care on the Psychiatric Ward"

From my experience, I noticed Upton House has a bad smell, quite dirty, very hectic, awful, and triggering environment, some staff like nurses, peer support workers, OTs etc are very nice, thoughtful, and caring, but the doctors I've seen are extremely rude, dismissive, apathetic, pushy, and unhelpful.

Had a voluntary admission but couldn't get discharged for a few days as you need to see a doctor to have an assessment done first. None of the doctors were available even though my nurse had asked one particular doctor three times to see me before they went home as they don't come in on weekends.

I believe it is so unbelievably distressing having to; answer the exact same 20 something questions that I feel are intrusive and traumatising in so much detail to nearly 10 different clinicians individually on the same day when I understand they already have everything recorded on file.

As well as being locked up with alot of acutely ill people with seemingly nothing helpful to do and having to share rooms with others who are constantly; yelling, crying, sharing triggering things, making threats, getting in fights with security, asking you to leave when you need to sleep because they don't want you to eavesdrop on their conversations to themselves, walking around barely dressed, and throwing things around. 

I found it distressing to have plumbing issues in the only available toilet in your room, having a very old and out of tune piano in the shared area that people will bash the keys on late at night, have constant staff changeovers where handover doesn't happen properly, I believe they hold onto your personal things and they end up lost or broken, can't have day leave or visitors without a doctor's approval, or having staff constantly forget important details like your prescribed medications, what time you need to take them, and not having any choice in the kind of treatment you receive, or being treated with even the slightest bit of respect or dignity.

I feel these issues are less bad but still worth mentioning; having dinner at 5pm, filling out the menus for meals and clearly stating your dietary restrictions only for them to be seemingly ignored, very slow and unstable internet, really hard and uncomfortable beds which worsen back pain, waiting in ED for 16 hours to be seen by a triage nurse to be admitted, or having staff constantly barge in your room at random times when you've already told them that you have important online appointments and need some time to be left alone.

Based on my experience I suggest you; please provide enough staff including doctors, be more attentive, caring, and considerate of patients' needs, have more smaller, peaceful wards with less patients and more activities/freedom/outdoor space, and let them be have more of a say in their treatment.