From January 23rd 2012 - Psychological Wellbeing Week

Radio Frimley Park is heavily involved in a joint project with Doctors at the hospital to promote Wellbeing week

“The project is targeted at patients whose physical illness has led to a relatively long hospital stay and who may experience psychological distress during their hospitalisation. There is good evidence that improving the psychological well being of physically unwell patients can improve their recovery and reduce their length of stay in hospital.

Levels of psychological distress tend to be high in hospital and our role is to promote early identification and management of this distress. We are aware that as a small service we are only able to see a small percentage of people who are struggling to cope. We believe that using the media resources within the Hospital could be a cost effective way of broadening patients’ access to psychological advice and information. This approach is used widely in general hospitals in the United States but we could find no published literature suggesting this is the case in the UK. As such, this could be a very exciting venture for all concerned.

What we are proposing is to work with RFP to develop a Psychological Wellbeing Week on the radio in the first instance. The aim would be to reach as many patients as possible who are currently in Frimley Park Hospital and who may be experiencing psychological distress as a result of their illness and hospitalisation. The aim of this initial week would be to get something up and running and then evaluate how useful this approach is and use this feedback to guide the development of a longer term programme.”

That’s what the two Clinical Psychologists involved Dr Michelle Conn and Dr Michelle Sowden, both from the Psychological department, had to say about the goals they are trying to achieve. With the help of Dave Bentley, a former patient, Abbey Gil-bert, a Clinical Psychologist in training, Mena Vallance, Head of Emergency Services & Patient Access and Dr Malcolm Hawthorn a Consultant Psychiatrist, they will guide us through the Wellbeing Week.

The week starts on January 23rd and a special Wellbeing programme will broadcast daily at 1500hrs. Top Tips will be broadcast on the hour from 1600 till 1900 just after the news and there will be a Meditation session every night at 10pm. So tune in to Channel 45 on the Hospedia pod to listen to these innovative broadcasts from Radio Frimley Park, who are proud to be associated with this prodigious event.

Leaflets will be distributed around the hospital to make patients aware of the special programmes compiled and introduced by our very own Malcolm Treen.