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St. Andrews

VoiceAbility provide an independent, free, confidential generic and statutory Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) service to all patients based at Northampton St Andrews Healthcare medium and low secure sites. The advocacy service supports patients in understanding and making use of their legal rights. IMHAs will also help patients exercise their rights.

All advocacy provision delivered by VoiceAbility works on a casework basis, with the advocacy activities instructed by the patient, except in circumstances when the patient is unable to do so due to lack of capacity. When a patient lacks capacity to instruct an advocate, and does not meet the criteria for an Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA), the advocate service will deliver non-instructed advocacy.

The advocacy service ensures that they work towards the patient’s wishes, empowering the patient and remaining issue-focused. Our goal is always to work towards self-advocacy.

The VoiceAbility Northampton team is made up of 6 advocates, working across 5 divisions for an estimated 550 patients. These divisions include service users from different groups; Older People, Acquired Brain Injury, Men’s, Women’s and Adolescents.

Those accessing the advocacy service report that having an advocate there to walk alongside them through often difficult and challenging situations can give them the strength to speak up.

A good example is a Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) – these meetings can be a very daunting for patients with many professionals discussing their history and treatment. If required, the advocate can support the patient before the MHRT to understand the format of these meetings and understand their rights at these meetings. The advocate can also support the patient to prepare questions they wish to ask at the MHRT. The advocate often attends the MHRT – patients have reported that this gives them confidence and reassurance that someone else is there for them. After the MHRT, the patient and advocate can meet to discuss how the meeting went and identify any other issues that need clarifying.

Working Example A funding authority for an informal service user was considering an alternative placement for the user nearer to their home area. The service user was suspected to lack capacity to understand the implications of moving to another hospital in another county at that time. Using Non Instructed Advocacy methods, the advocate worked with the funding authority to ensure her lack of capacity on this issue was confirmed and documented appropriately. The advocate then worked with people involved in the user’s care to gather information using the Watching Brief framework. The advocate collated and presented this information in a report which asked the funders whether they can taken into consideration all factors presented. The advocate worked with the funders to ensure all aspects of the situation were considered when making their decision and ensured that a Best Interest Checklist could document that their decision to move the user was in the user’s best interest.