Author Archives: RWH-Blog-Admin

Secret Ways To Get Discharged From Section

There are a million pages online about getting discharged from section, including from charities like Mind. But they all give you the official lines – Hospital Managers’ Hearing, Tribunal etc etc. What they won’t tell you about are these*:

  1. Flawed sectioning papers

    Ask for the original sectioning paperwork. If there’s a mistake in there, the sectioning may not be valid.

    For example, if the name of the previous hospital was not properly filled in, or the current hospital’s name is abbreviated or misspelled, or there is some other flaw (consult a lawyer), you may have a good case.

    Tip: Walk into the hospital fully prepared with all the paperwork, and a lawyer, and demand the patient be allowed to leave “right now”. Don’t disclose the flaw to the hospital or they will quickly go and correct the error or get emergency Section 5(2) powers to hold the patient for 72 hours while they correct the paperwork!

    (See also #4 below)

  2. Make a nuisance of yourself

    One of the founders of this site made such a nuisance of himself to Rhodes Wood Hospital that the management were tied up in red tape, key staff were unable to function, the RC got “stress” and went on long sick leave, the local council’s enforcement division launched action against the hospital for planning violations, there were multiple fitness to practise cases at the NMC, the GMC and social work England….

    Eventually, the hospital caved. They changed his daughter’s primary diagnosis from anorexia to EUPD so they could do an emergency discharge just to get rid of him. He’s willing to talk with any other parents of patients in Rhodes Wood Hospital to explain how he went about it. Use our contact page to provide your details for him to contact you.

    Which brings us to ….

  3. Change of diagnosis

    If you can achieve a change of primary diagnosis from anorexia to something else, a hospital that’s getting paid for treating an Eating Disorder now has no more reason to hold that patient and will want them discharged (or transferred elsewhere, be careful of this!).

  4. Abscond

    No, seriously. What happens if you take the patient on leave and do not return?

    One parent who did this reports that the hospital threatened to get the police involved to come to the house and force the patient back to hospital. The reality with the police, however, seems to be different. Most police forces are reluctant to do anything unless there is an immediate danger to the patient or to others.

    In this case, the police did nothing and the hospital got more and more demanding but the parent held firm. The hospital gave up in the end and discharged the patient after some weeks.

    What about medication? The parent who did a successful abscond reports that the hospital sent the medication over to the house while the patient was AWOL.

*We are not lawyers. Always consult a lawyer before following any advice on this page.

What ideas / suggestions do YOU have? How did YOU get your section discharged?

Considering a job at Rhodes Wood?

If you’ve landed on this page you’ve probably clicked on an ad of ours targeted at individuals considering employment in Rhodes Wood Hospital. Welcome!

Prior to taking up a job at Rhodes Wood, we highly recommend you do some research on this place and what current employees have to say. We believe that the combination of CQC’s Inadequate rating for this hospital (since 2019), a lot of vacancies, and stories of hospitals like Milestones being shut down for lack of staff, don’t bode well for Rhodes Wood Hospital.

Current Jobs May 2021

Eating Disorder Support Worker

Mental Health Nurse

Consultant Psychiatrist

But that is not all, they’ve got PLENTY of other jobs as staff are regularly leaving.

They’re looking for a therapist to cover Nadine da Cal going on maternity leave (from June 2021):

They need at least one psychiatrist given that Dr Josh went in Jan and Dr Wiseman is leaving soon (and who knows how long Dr Ogunboye and Dr Fenton will last!).

They need to replace Panni, the maintenance guy.

But they also need nurses, support workers, admin staff, housekeeping staff, dieticians, chefs and catering assistants, housekeepers …everyone seems to be leaving! Here are some ads from the last 30 days:

This is a different ad to the previous one for a MH nurse which was offering £30K – £37K

Bear in mind that this is a TINY hospital with about a couple of dozen patients. So you need to ask yourself why they have so many vacancies. You can see the latest list of vacancies here if you search for keyword Rhodes Wood.

Why are they so desperately in need of staff? They’ve got job ads all over the place. In addition to the two locations from which the above examples were taken, they’ve got ads on Monster (example), NHS Jobs (example), Melga (example), Talent.com, TotalJobs (example), Simply Hired (example) , TES (example) and other locations.


Read what other employees of Elysium Healthcare have said

At Indeed.com

Read what patients and their parents have to say

User Feedback

But the benefits sound great?!

They’ll talk about a “friendly, committed and established CAMHS Mental Health service”. They are established, well, Elysium Healthcare has been around since 2016. But committed? Depends on what you mean. The owners have squeezed this hospital (and others) for as much money as they could and they’ve put the whole group up for sale. Yes, it’s currently up for sale.

They’ll talk about the job being “enjoyable and rewarding”. You’ll be overworked and unpaid according to so many reviews at various job sites. There are also many complaints about bullying, stress, all sorts.

They’ll talk about a Welcome bonus, CPD packages, free massage at work, 33 days off plus your birthday. Yeah, your birthday as well! That’s how caring they are. Except that you need to speak with a current employee or two who’ll tell you what it’s really like. We can arrange that if you wish. The employee will talk with you anonymously; simply use our contact page to get in touch and provide your name and email address.

Safety, Security & Safeguarding

We parents have numerous examples of serious lapses in safety. Yes, yes, we could take them to the CQC. We have. In these Covid times, CQC simply pass the complaint to the hospital and tell them to do something. There seems to be no follow up, no action.

Some of these children are suicidal and are on 1:1 observation with at least one staff member meant to be watching them at all times. There have been numerous occasions when staff members have been fast asleep when meant to be watching these high risk patients! One parent reports at least 3 such recent incidents of staff being asleep. That’s just ONE parent’s report.

Most of the night staff are agency staff. They’re there for the day and not too fussed about doing the job properly. Most don’t know HOW to do the job.

Numerous parents have reported to us about staff being asleep on duty. To Rhodes Wood’s credit they do take action when given the name of the staff member and do not hire that agency staff member again. However, that does not solve the problem as there’s always another “sleeper” who could be on duty tomorrow.

One patient reports that a night time agency staff member actually asked her, “Do you mind if I shut my eyes for a few minutes?”!

Fobs

Staff members have fobs that are needed to open all the secure doors, including the gate in the video here. These fobs are meant to be on their person at all times, but they often take them off and leave them about.

This is a irresistible temptation for many patients who attempt to grab these fobs and do a runner. They don’t get very far, as staff do catch them and restrain them. But that’s unnecessary trauma for patients who are already in a very bad place.

Gates

The main gate to the secure area is what the below video is about. This gate is meant to be always shut. The parent who took this video (also on Youtube) claims that he was waiting at the gate for 15-20 minutes before shutting the gate to secure the premises. He says it’s not the first or second time he’s seen this lax security.

Fortunately, no patient noticed the open gate and attempted to make a run for it.

Staged Photos of Rhodes Wood Hospital

While researching Rhodes Wood Hospital you may come across the below photos and be very impressed by the clean, comfortable look.

That is NOT how the hospital looks now! It’s gone downhill considerably.

These photos were taken when the place was new and recently decorated. That was a long time ago. Go visit the hospital today and you won’t recognise it as the same place pictured here.

Employees – Email to employees on 02/05/2021

Employees’ home page.

Below is the content of the email sent out to employees on 02/05/21


TO ALL CURRENT AND EX-STAFF OF RHODES WOOD HOSPITAL

We are a group of ex-patients and parents who are extremely concerned about serious failings at Rhodes Wood Hospital and are considering a variety of legal and other actions against the hospital.

This notice comes to bring you information that is extremely important to you as an employee. Please read it in full.

1. Are you aware that for many employees at Rhodes Wood, including doctors and nurses, it is your legal responsibility to report to the CQC or other authority any safeguarding or other failures and risks you see at RWH? Reporting such infractions is called whistleblowing and it’s not something that you have an option on doing. You are failing in your moral duty towards patients, and breaking the law, if you do not report such matters.

2. Whistleblowing is protected by law: The Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) 1998 provides protection to “workers” making disclosures in the public interest and allows such individuals to claim compensation for victimisation following such disclosures. If your employer does come to know about your whistleblowing actions they cannot let this adversely affect your employment i.e. they cannot take it out on you.

3. There are a wide range of matters you can report on, it’s not just safeguarding failures. Whistleblowing also covers a report you may file when someone’s health or safety is at risk (or likely to be at risk). It even covers situations where a colleague is covering up some such risk. Do you know of any such occasion/s at RWH? It is your legal duty to report it.

4. What if you’ve got less than 2 years’ service? Normally, the law makes it easier to terminate the contract of an employee who has less than two years’ service. However, if you’re a known whistleblower, Elysium can’t terminate your services easily and you obtain the equivalent of “protected characteristics”. From here: “…where there is a valid whistleblowing claim, length of service is not a bar to bringing a claim in an Employment Tribunal and there is no statutory cap on damages that can be awarded, as there is in ordinary unfair dismissal cases”.

5. If your employer does terminate your service for whistleblowing, you can claim financial compensation. There are several examples online of whistleblowers who have won hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation for just this. You can get a higher compensation award if you are dismissed after whistleblowing than before. With whistleblowing compensation claims, there is no maximum limit to the award! In the case of Small v Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, an agency worker was awarded £54,126 when he blew the whistle after two months working at the trust.

6. Employees can claim under unfair dismissal, but what if you’re an agency worker? You can make a detriment claim instead (including “for being given harder or mundane work; demeaning or humiliating comments being made; insignificant issues about conduct being unduly highlighted; the way in which grievances and disciplinary issues are handled so the employer is not taking them seriously” etc).

7. You can take your complaint to the CQC, but you cannot post it online in social media or blogs. However, the CQC is not the only place you can report these things. You could also, in some cases, report them elsewhere, even to the press (however, you do need to be careful to not violate patient confidentiality when disclosing to the press). The CQC do, however, have a useful PDF guide to whistleblowing. Note that the CQC cannot provide you legal advice nor assist with an employment tribunal. But we can provide this help for free (see details at the end of this email).

Have you been a victim of bullying, intimidation, discrimination of any kind by your employers or colleagues at Rhodes Wood Hospital? Have you been witness to your employers breaking the law? Are you aware of other employees/colleagues/management who have not followed the rule book and/or put patients at risk? You have a legal duty to report a wide range of incidents.

Elysium have already lost at least one case when a whistle blowing employee suffered “detriment” i.e. the hospital treated him differently for having made a complaint. The law gives you a lot of protection as a whistle blower.

We have raised significant funds to compensate RWH employees who are willing to turn whistleblower. Our initial plan was to pay a £10,000 reward for information leading to the closure or RW Hospital. However, our lawyers have advised us that it is not currently legal to provide financial incentives for someone to blow the whistle. Instead, we are using the funds to help RWH whistleblowers get the legal advice and compensation they deserve. We cannot pay you directly but if you do want to share with us any information about the hospital violating any law or taking any safeguarding risks, we would be most grateful as we might be able to use that in our own action/s against Elysium. You can disclose information to us through our lawyers who will also ensure that no patient confidentiality is breached.

Our lawyers are already helping one of your colleagues and we invite you to seek our lawyers’ assistance if you, too, have something to disclose to the authorities. All such legal advice you receive will be funded by us. We do not ask for a cut of any compensation you’re awarded from Elysium Healthcare.

How it works:

– If you want to avail of our legal firm’s help in a whistleblowing matter, simply write to this email address (but make sure you write from a private gmail / outlook / hotmail type address and not your work address) – rhodes.wood.hatfield@gmail.com

– We do not wish to know your name or your identity so please do not disclose these details when you contact us;

– Our lawyers, however, will need to take your name and other details as they have a legal responsibility to do this. They will also verify your employment status at RWH. Note though that it will all be under a confidentiality agreement and they will not be at liberty to disclose those details to us;

– Our lawyers will pass your concerns / reports to the relevant authorities. They will also answer any questions you have about whistleblowing and advise around the subject.

– You will be charged no fees for this legal advice.

Note that any further emails we send to staff at RWH will come from a different email address (just in case Elysium block our gmail address).

Please pass the contents of this email to any colleagues of yours who have not received a copy. It will also be available on our website: Or go straight to our Employee Information Page which we will keep updated with news about our campaign that is of importance to you.

RWH Parent Action Group


NEWS

May 2021

This site is now #1 in Bing and #2 in Yahoo for the search term “Rhodes Wood Hospital”. And it’s rising in the Google rankings as well. Thank you to everyone for their support.

#1 ranking in Bing

#2 ranking in Yahoo

May 2021

The CEO of Elysium Healthcare visited the hospital. We are sure there will be lots of noise made about how fantastic a hospital it is and how brilliantly the visit went.

April 2021

The hospital made some major staff changes, moved people around within the wards and caused a lot of upset not just with patients, but staff as well. Patients lost key workers and others with whom they had build relationships and it was very distressing for them. Worse, this is just phase 1 of a 3 phase process so there are two more major changes to come.

24/02/2021

The story of a mother forced to take matters into her own hands, first to investigate her son’s death and then to reform the mental-health system that failed him

22/02/2021

Another Mental Health hospital is closed by CQC: Milestones Hospital was shut on Friday last week. That private hospital, like Rhodes Wood, is used by NHS trusts, including the region’s mental health services.

Do you know of any practises at Rhodes to be unsafe, abusive or otherwise unsatisfactory? Let us know.

This is how we treat vulnerable children in the UK: The troubling case of Girl G.

22/02/2021

The first Family & Carers Council meeting was held on 18th Feb, 2021 at 4 PM. There were several staff members from the hospital present, and there were six parents / carers.

Topics covered included communications from the hospital, training in the use of restraints and on-site / off-site visits and family meal arrangements. If you haven’t received minutes from the meeting, contact Amy at the hospital.

Employee Feedback

The top questions prospective employees ask of current employees, and the top replies they get. Source: Indeed.co.uk

What is the work environment like?

“Bullying culture, gaslighting vulnerable staff and patients, discrimination, if you value your mental health avoid this lot. They ruin careers and will push you under the bus with no support. Blaming culture from weak managers all of whom appear to have Sociopathic traits. Avoid.”

“I was employed in CHAMS unit, had no proper support or supervision, my shifts pattern was not established appropriately and I didn’t get paid for doing overtime. The handover meetings were a joke. With some exception, most of the nurses in charge had no idea what they were doing, they were ridiculously rude and lacked proper manners when talking to their staff members. They ignored any feedback from healthcare assistants, they talked down to them and had big ego trips during handover meetings every day. They often used threats such as ‘if in your observation something happens you will go to prison’, they never blamed themselves for their own the inadequacies. I have never worked in such an awful place in my whole entire life before. The level of unprofessionalism is beyond belief. They have absolutely no interest in looking after their staff. There are staff shortages almost every day, staff are overworked and absolutely exhausted as they are not given their proper breaks. You are lucky if you get half an hour lunch break during a 12-hour shift. The patients are constantly at risk because of staff shortages, they have a lot of agency staff who are not trained properly to understand the needs of the patients. Patients are very unhappy, they don’t feel like their needs are being met, they feel neglected. Please, take my advise and do not apply for a job in CAHMS unit in Elysium healthcare.”

“The work environment is extremely dangerous, best case scenario this company destroys your career prospects, the worse case is you end up dead because Elysium refuses to hire enough staff to make the work environment safe. The managing director is fraud who is only interested in money.”

“Horrible. Dangerous, the high turn over in staff reflects this. If you have mental health issues avoid at all costs.”

How do you feel about going to work at Elysium Healthcare every day?

“Physically sick every time”

“Dread it every shift you know your going to be short staffed and agency useless half the time they are massive triggers. Love though how management will only address issues after they’ve had had patients attack them because of the rules they enforce on them but is fine for support staff to be attacked daily”Management are just rude, ignorant and bullies. Lack of support from them, ignore clinical decisions and override nurses decisions if a patient isn’t deemed suitable for the environment. Unapproachable, massive staff shortages.”

“Staff are on some wards so stressed but management don’t understand why as they’re not on the floor doing the hands on care or observations/interventions.”

“Management are just rude, ignorant and bullies. Lack of support from them, ignore clinical decisions and override nurses decisions if a patient isn’t deemed suitable for the environment. Unapproachable, massive staff shortages.”

“Stressed. Anxious, fearful, unsupported and bullied by gaslighting managers paid to, and sanctioned from above to treat staff in this way. Contracts changed with no consultations, told lies….avoid”

What would you suggest Elysium Healthcare management do to prevent others from leaving?

Not short staffing the wards and paying us better salaries. The money isn’t worth it when we are at risk of getting attacked and seeing horrible things.

What should you wear to an interview at Elysium Healthcare?

Nurses uniform always gives you the edge

If you were to leave Elysium Healthcare, what would be the reason?

Good staff leave, brown nosing sycophants stay. The culture of this company is as sick as the people they pretend to care for. Money rules.

If you were in charge, would would you do to make Elysium Healthcare a better place to work?

This organisation shouldn’t be running these units. Untrained staff tied up in policies that only benefit the company. If you complain, the victimise you out of a job. Sociopaths!

OTHER INFORMATION

Pay: Monthly, not weekly
Leave: 3 sick days per 12 months
Shift Choice: If you are bank, you are zero hours. Regulars don’t get choice of shift
Shifts: Typically nurses and healthcare assistants work three 12.5 hour days, giving you four days off to rest
Payday: Last working day of the month

.

Contribute

To join our forum and speak with other members, contact us to open your account as we need to verify you have a genuine connection with the hospital (for example, as a parent or patient). Hospital management and staff do not have access to this parent / carer forum.

To comment anonymously on any public post on this website or to provide anonymous feedback, you do not need an account.

You can simply reply in the comments section of any post. For example, scroll to the bottom of this reviews page and you’ll see a space for comments.

WRITE AN ARTICLE FOR THIS SITE

Want to write an article for this site to be posted on its own page? Get in touch. Are an ex-patient and want to tell us about your experience, good or bad? Write us an article and we’ll post it for everyone to see. Are you a whistleblower and want the world to know about some practise at Rhodes Wood Hospital? Write us an article.

We can maintain your anonymity and do not need to publicly disclose your name or details in any article written for this site.

BASIC GUIDELINES

  • Do not mention patients by name;
  • Do not disclose any other personal information about patients;
  • Do not disclose what would enable the public to ascertain the identity of a patient;
  • Criticism is acceptable, abuse isn’t;
  • All content needs to be child-safe (no NSFW content).

CONTACTING THE OPERATORS OF THIS SITE

Please note that we are not the management of Rhodes Wood Hospital, we cannot provide any medical advice. Contact us only in relation to the operation of this website.

Reviews left at Google Reviews

The reverse chronological order (with latest reviews first):

This place is quite frankly a horrendous please do not send your loved to this place. I beg you !
Your human rights will be stripped from you and you will be treated with less respect and dignity then a prisoner. You will be kept inside and left to your own thoughts at mealtimes.there is no support and often are short of staff. This doesn’t even skim the surface as there are many many issues in this place and the therapy here Is not adequate whatsoever I would never recommend this place to anyone informal or not.Rhodes wood is also not very hygienic and the rooms often smell of rotten eggs they also are extremely dirty, there is mold in the bathrooms and kitchen also there is dirt and sometimes blood on the walls. Not only this but there is also ensure replacement down the backs of the sofas and on the ceiling and not to mention there is bubbles on the ceiling that are and have been dripping but nothing has been done to resolve this issue. Surely this is a danger to our health but nothing has been done.it is also stated in the reception area that this place is inadequate in all areas.surely this is a sign to close this place down for good. I am currently a patient here and I have experienced the worse care ever and I’m not even close to finishing treatment as we are currently in lockdown for 28 days maybe more depending on the COVID situation meaning all of our progress stops and we are no longer allowed to carry out tasks which lead to discharge wether we are doing well or not. This places answer to anything is medication and they don’t care about you once you are they weight they want you to be.they will tell you figures of everything even if you don’t want to know because apparently it’s a part of treatment.i cannot stress enough that you must not come here you will be treated like you are not human just because you have an ed

Like a prison. We were kept in dark rooms, alone with our thoughts, force fed with no therapy to help. Left with staff who had no clue what to do. Punished with biscuits, strengthening the thoughts that food was the enemy, no help to develop a good relationship with food and exercise. Self harm punished and not treated with care and support. Other inpatient hospitals are much better, if possible don’t go here!

If you don’t understand basic psychology you shouldn’t open a facility to treat a mental illness . This place should be closed down. I’m absolutely APPALLED by the lack of good care and the abuse done to young girls. Instead of being selfish and only setting up the first facility because you needed cash educate yourself and get a real job

I would definitely not rate this place. What is done here is absolutely unexeptable. I will always remember the way I was treated and so many other patients will agree it was way beyond wrong what is done there. I was niglected a human right. That was that I was not allowed outside as a punishment for simply being ill and needing that support. Prisoners are allowed outside. It does not matter how high risk levels are. We were kept like prisoners that have done something wrong. So so many staff and individuals were kind, caring people and I thank them with all my heart for that truly I do. Forever I will. However this was Rhodes Farm I am talking about. Rhodes Wood should be shut down. They all deserve better support and care. The rules inforced I am very sure should be illegal. Please,please as already said do not send your loved ones here. Rhodes Wood is not what care or support looks like, feels like.

Even the thought of this place makes me sick, although i have not been a patient at the new location the same regime is followed at Rhodes Wood as when it was Rhodes farm, which i had the misfortune of receiving inpatient treatment. The only way to describe it is mental abuse. Staff use food as a punishment to keep patients in line, many things that go on inside the walls are nothing other than torture.I experienced things i should never have had to and any hope you have when you are admitted is very quickly drained out of you by the cruelty of the program. I have attended other hospitals before and after my time here and none of the practices that go on in Rhodes are allowed to happen elsewhere. I have been suffering flashbacks and nightmares about the place ever since i left. DO NOT let your loved ones go here to be treated. It will break them and make them worse. I have more of a journey to go on as a result of that place than i did before being admitted

My daughter was treated here in August 2017. During her admission the unit was inspected for the first time by the Care Quality Commission. The report can easily be read online. The hospital achieved ‘good’ across all categories. This is fantastic for a first inspection, and reflects our family’s experience. The unit is well led, has passionate and kind staff, runs a coherent programme of treatment in line with the recommendations of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, and includes personal and family therapy which seemed very successful. They offer treatment even to very, very ill children. The nurses and therapeutic care workers were lovely. Although staffing and the need for supervision mean that the patients spend almost all their time indoors the school seemed superb (and gave us very constructive and excellent feedback) and there are events such as massage, animation, dance etc onsite. For those who are well enough there is a fair programme of visits out of the unit. The medical staff are mostly locums at present but seemed approachable and sensible. There was an excellent parent support group and we were particularly impressed by the ‘expert by experience’, who has come to terms with anorexia and rebuilt her life, and who offers friendship and support to the patients.

Of course not everything is perfect. Getting into the unit to visit is particularly difficult; some of the rooms are very dark and the bedrooms get very hot (better lighting and air-conditioning to all bedrooms is being fitted at present). It seems the company listen to feedback and to the regular Patient Council.

An eating disorder is awful, and distorts perception. It is hardly surprising that some have left negative reviews since recovery is a very difficult road, but our experience was very positive. If you or your family need treatment I would like to assure you that Rhodes Wood will look after you kindly, following best practice, and give you every chance to regain a fulfilling and full life. Good luck!

You can go if you want but do keep in mind you’ll get less human rights and freedom than a prisoner

I’d give less if I could … This supposed eating disorder clinic,Should be SHUT DOWN.
Should also change there ” partners in care” signs as they are no longer part of this group.