A poem for World No Tobacco Day

31 May is World No Tobacco Day. To celebrate, we're sharing a poem from a service user who has given up smoking. The poem below was written by Shelly, a patient at The Wells Road Centre.

Smoking

I gave up smoking

As I started choking 

My cravings are kicking in

But I’m going to win

No more fags for me

I will live, just wait and see

People around me are having a drag

On their life threatening fag, 

I wish people would learn, 

That smoking causes their arteries to burn 

Think about those you love, 

Think how they will feel when you’re sent above, 

Smoking causes death too quick

So use this time to quit. 

Our Trust is going Smokefree from October 2016. This means that smoking will not be allowed in our buildings or grounds. To find out more, visit www.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/smokefree.

Seeds of hope at Highbury

Preparations to open an allotment garden at Highbury are well underway, so we caught up with Suzanne Foulk from The Live Project to find out more.

There’s been a lot happening on the Come Grow With Me @ Highbury allotment garden recently, in preparation for our official opening on the 16 June at our Summer Fayre.

47 years working at Rampton Hospital

Jan Wilkinson worked at Rampton Hospital for 47 years before retiring last week. Before she left, we asked Jan to reflect on her time there and the changes she has seen over the years.

Of course, Rampton Hospital was different in 1969 when I started working here. There were less than 30 staff on the administration side of the workforce, and if I remember correctly the hospital employed a total of approximately 600 staff (there are now 1500). At that time the hospital housed 1200 or so patients, whereas today there are around 350.

What's it like to be a mental health nurse?

12 May is International Nurses' Day. We’re all familiar with the role of physical health nurses, but you might not know as much about psychiatric nurses. We spoke to Steven Daykin, who is a Ward Manager at Highbury Hospital, about what a psychiatric nurse does and what being a nurse means to him.

I got into psychiatric nursing because I had been around mental illness from a young age. My Grandma had Alzheimer’s, and from around the age of 10 I spent many a day in a psychiatric hospital in Derby. I was around very ill people, who didn’t know who they were and who were saying quite strange things. They were often emotional or sad, and this became a normal everyday environment for me.