Take a closer look at St Martha’s Nursing Unit

What were you doing before you came to the St Magnus Community?
I trained to be a doctor at University College Cork in the Republic of Ireland, undertaking summer work as a nursing assistant at a hospital on Long Island, New York. Patients there with dementia syndromes interested me. It is an experience that continues to make me appreciate the excellent care that my care-assisting colleagues in the St Magnus Community provide day in, day out.

I became particularly interested in the brain, both from a psychiatric mental illness point of view, and in conditions affecting the brain and nervous systems, such as stroke and seizure disorders. As part of my post-qualification basic medical training I worked in a neurology service for a year and also covered care of patients admitted out of hours to an acute older persons’ hospital ward. These excellent experiences in the clinical presentations of older patients keep me in good stead.

I trained as a psychiatrist in Dublin then once I become a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1998, I moved to London for higher specialist training in both Old Age Psychiatry and General Adult Psychiatry. I investigated the mental health problems faced by people appearing before magistrates’ courts, and my research paper on older mentally disordered offenders subject to restriction orders was published in the Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology.

I next undertook higher specialist training to be a forensic psychiatrist. Most rewarding was working collaboratively with patients with severe mental illness finding themselves before the criminal justice system because of their illnesses. I collaborated with multidisciplinary teams in both community and medium secure hospitals in North and East London, and gained valuable experience in placements at Broadmoor High Secure Hospital.

From 2006 until 2011 I worked as an NHS Consultant in Forensic Psychiatry at a medium secure service in Wickford, Essex. During early 2011 I attended an Old Age Psychiatry conference where I met a colleague with whom I trained in Dublin 12 years previously. Coincidentally, he provided out-of-hours medical cover for the then newly opened St Magnus Hospital. By best fortune, I also met Jo Randall from St Magnus, now our CEO, at the conference. This led to my appointment as Medical Director to St Magnus Hospital in October 2011.

What do you enjoy about your work here?
I learn continuously from patients, their carers and from my colleagues. There is never a dull moment here at the St Magnus Community! The most valuable thing I have learned is that to provide excellent care you must get the basics in each area of operation absolutely spot-on. From keeping the hospitals and grounds clean and tidy, to laundry services and catering, right through to the careful and comprehensive clinical and medical assessments of our patients. All these complex moving parts are important in enabling our patients to participate to the best of their abilities with their individual care plans. It is how we make sure that individual patients’ needs remain the focus of our care.

In a typical week I ensure that the medical input into the organisation is running tip-top 24/7. I chair meetings of the Executive Management Team and Clinical Governance meetings; I also chair weekly medical staff meetings. I supervise the associate medical director and support the other clinical directors across our two hospitals. I liaise with colleagues from all disciplines as well as with colleagues from Clinical Governance. I support the senior management team with medical advice as part of our organisational responses to queries from commissioners and regulators.

What makes St Magnus different?
There is both great generosity of spirit and a spirit of purpose amongst colleagues working here. I think the focus of providing the best care we can to our patients, and our working collaboratively with our patients and their carers, is keener here than in previous healthcare settings where I worked. I would sum us up as “happy, collaborative and kind”.

I am enormously proud of my role in building an excellent medical team across both hospitals. Our hospital consultants and our associate specialist psychiatrists each have exceptional depths to their levels of experience, skills and expertise in managing the range of mental disorders with which our patients present. I am also proud of my part in fostering the excellent relationships between members of the multidisciplinary teams at the hospitals to say nothing of the first-class working relationship across the senior management team!

How do you relax when you’re not at work?
I cook, hike, and cycle; but not all at the same time!