Date published: 29 November 2021
Those of you who are keen followers of the news and social media will know there have been two announcements in the last week which provided official recognition of the work we have done over the last few years in establishing the Life Rooms.
It’s now five years since the first of our three Life Rooms sites were opened in the old Walton library (Southport and Bootle are the others), and I remember having moments of anxiety when I wondered whether we’d done the right thing. Remembering those slight fears makes it even more special now when the Life Rooms model is given official clinical recognition and they are shortlisted for another national award, as has happened this week.
You’ll recall the Life Rooms won the Excellence in Mental Health Care Award at the NHS Parliamentary Awards earlier this year and now they have been shortlisted in the Innovation in Mental Health category at the Health Business Awards 2021. They will find out on 9 December if they have won, but well done to all the team for being recognised once again.
Awards like those are always special because not only does it give you vindication that what you are doing is correct, but it shows other people are taking notice. This recent recognition is particularly nice because it refers to how Life Rooms reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic by moving their materials and courses online (see below).
That has been followed by the publication of new clinical guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) this week which recommends new treatment options for those diagnosed with depression. They want patients to be given a menu of treatment options to allow them choice in their care, including medication, exercise and counselling, which is of course exactly what Life Rooms has offered over the last five years.
‘Choice’ is a big word, particularly for those with mental illness because it truly does debilitate people to the extent that it affects their lives, an ability to earn an income and provides all sorts of obstacles to what we consider is a ‘normal life.’ In essence, it reduces your ability to have choices in your life.
When I first had discussions with Michael Crilly, our Director of Social Inclusion of Patient Participation, and Elaine Darbyshire, our Executive Director of Communications, Governance and Estates, about what our Life Rooms might look like, we always had it in mind that it was all about providing people with a free service, giving them an ability to choose.
Life Rooms gives people loads of choices which is so very different to the binary option often offered, which is being given medication as their only route to recovery. We didn’t establish the Life Rooms as an anti-medication stance, but we always saw it as a service that can work either instead of medication or alongside it to really make a difference to people’s lives. Giving people choice when it has been restricted for them is really empowering for those in that situation - it signals they really matter.
A clear feature for us was the need to give our social approach the ability to punch above its weight and shout loudly alongside the clinical dimensions of care. By doing so we’ve been able to develop the Life Rooms as a truly person centred and responsive service.
The other thing we’ve done with the Life Rooms is that we’ve deliberately designed them so they are visually and architecturally pleasant places to be. Again, when you walk into them it shouts out that you matter which is in stark contrast to previous mental health facilities, which historically were far from therapeutic.
Importantly, we knew if the Life Rooms succeeded, not only would it give people back their lives, giving them back their energy and hope, if we approached it reliably, compassionately and sensitively there would be no need for people who used these services to return to medical services, which is a crucial benefit during these challenging times for the NHS.
So, five years after I asked Michael to go away and identify sites for this ambitious new project, where are we now? As a Trust we now deal with a lot of physical health out in the community, so our next step must be to think about developing the Life Rooms into a physical health offer as well.
We need to be able to help someone with diabetes, for example, in a way that incorporates mindfulness in the knowledge that people who are newly diagnosed may suffer anxiety and stress. There’s a way of weaving physical and mental health together and the more we can link them with social wellbeing, the more we can have an impact on people’s lives.
At the start of this blog I referred to my anxieties about how the Life Rooms project would fare. As I stood with Michael and Elaine in Walton Life Rooms for the first time, the enormity of what we were doing started to dawn on me because it was a big and very public experiment.
It’s evolved from our original vision into a hub of the community without screaming NHS at you. It’s become glaringly obvious that the design was right and from the very start people were pulling hard on this and we weren’t having to push it very hard. Generally speaking, when that happens you know you’re in the right place.
Thank you everyone for all your hard work and dedication
Prof Joe Rafferty CBE
Chief Executive
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