All posts by Andrea

18 May 2013

Can you help?

Royal College of General Practitioners
"Are you passionate about a particular aspect of clinical care that doesn't usually get a look in ? Do you want to help improve the quality of patient care in that area ? If so, CIRC (Clinical Innovation and Research Centre) wants to hear from you."

Each year the RCGP (Royal College of General Practitioners) chooses four clinical areas and supports efforts to raise the profile and awareness of these areas both within general practice and across primary care as a whole. The RCGP also works in partnership with key decision-makers and opinion-formers in each area on projects that seek to improve both the quality of care provided and patient outcomes. Click here for further details

We're supporting a bid to the RCGP to get “Perinatal Mental Health” accepted as one of their clinical priorities for 2014-17.

For this we need to collect as many letters of support as possible from individuals and organisations explaining why important for GPs to receive specific training in perinatal mental health.

If you can help support this bid by writing a letter Click here to download the letter template

The application deadline is 31st May so we’d be very grateful for responses as soon as possible. Please email all completed letters to judy.shakespeare@virginmedia.com
23 April 2013

APP Nominated as Sotheby's 2013 Charity

Sotheby'sFrom Friday 26th July, 2013 Sotheby's staff are to hold their Annual Staff Exhibition where the public can view and buy artwork created by members of Sotheby’s staff. The exhibition will continue, thereafter for 2 weeks, Monday to Friday, 9am till 5pm, at Sotheby’s London address: New Bond St Galleries, 34 -35 New Bond St, London, W1A 2AA

We are delighted to announce that APP has been nominated as its 2013 charity. 

This wonderful support for APP is undertaken in memory of a well - loved colleague: Alice Montagu Douglas Scott (Alice Gibson-Watt) who, sadly, died recently. May we encourage you all to visit  this wonderful exhibition during the 2 weeks it is showing this summer? .... perhaps buy reasonably priced artwork ? ... or, if this is not possible, perhaps buy a beautifully produced 2013 Staff Exhibition sale catalogue from Sotheby’s, in which you will also find brief details of APP's work? (more…)

22 April 2013

Friends of APP - Marathon Fundraising

Jim Malbon successfully completed the Brighton marathon for APP. Warm thanks go to him for his valiant efforts - especially after hitting the "Wall" way before the finish line. He has raised a magnificent sum for our vital work and we think looks pretty good in our APP vest too!
 
Robin Hamilton is running the Madrid Marathon for us at the end of this month; again we are greatly indebted to him for this. We wish Robin well and hope the weather is not too hot for him.
 
The sums raised by Jim and Robin will prove invaluable in setting up our UK wide Peer Support networks and information banks - as well as in facilitating research - into this saddest of serious postnatal mental illnesses which can strike any mother, often "out of the blue".

(We have so many sporty partners and Friends of APP that we'll soon be able to produce running and triathlon teams!)

8 April 2013

Robin to run Madrid Marathon 28th April

"I am running a hot and hilly marathon in Madrid on Sunday 28th April this year. Just before Christmas a family friend of mine tragically died following a brief illness I had not previously heard of, Postpartum Psychosis (PP). She had had her first child, a beautiful girl, just 5 weeks beforehand."

"I have since learned that Postpartum Psychosis is a mental illness characterised by the sudden onset of psychotic symptoms following childbirth. As you will see on the charity website, APP is a charity set up with the following aims: To provide up to date information to women who have experienced PP & their families, to facilitate research into all aspects of PP, to facilitate a peer support network for women & their families, to increase awareness of PP, its symptoms, management & impact among health professionals & the general public, and to advocate for improved services for women & their families."

"With many people I know starting families, and with the sad loss of my friend, I feel that it is a very real and worthy cause which will help raise awareness of Postpartum Psychosis, and what can be done to prevent tragedy. Thank you so much for all your support, and thank you for any donations - I will be thinking of all of you who have supported the charity as I race around Madrid at the end of this month."

From all of us at APP, thank you very much Robin. We hope your training is going well & we wish you the very best of luck for the forthcoming run!

Anti-stigma campaign shows drop in discrimination against people with mental health problems

A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry has shown there has been an 11.5% reduction in average levels of discrimination.

Led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), the study of England’s Time to Change anti-stigma programme (run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness) provides the first evidence that it is possible to change the way the public treat people with mental health problems, but that a long term focus is needed to ensure that discrimination is removed from all areas of people’s lives.  (more…)

15 March 2013

Postpartum Depression: Surprising Rate of Women Depressed After Baby

A surprisingly high number of women have postpartum depressive symptoms, according to a new, large-scale study in the US.

This is the largest scale depression screening of postpartum women and the first time a full psychiatric assessment has been done in a study of postpartum women who screened positive for depression.

The study, which included a depression screening of 10,000 women who had recently delivered infants at single obstetrical hospital, revealed a large percentage of women who suffered recurrent episodes of major depression.

The study underscored the importance of prenatal as well as postpartum screening. Mothers' and infants' health and lives hang in the balance. The lives of several women who were suicidal when staff members called them for the screening were saved likely as a result of the study's screening and immediate intervention. (more…)

6 March 2013

APP's First Purple Wedding!

Purple WeddingAPP's first purple wedding took place on 2nd January 2013, when Jo Thorpe married Will Grace at Holdsworth House in Halifax, West Yorkshire.  After recovering from PP in 2010, Jo married her partner Will, whom she met whilst they played music together in a band, with their beautiful daughter, Marya, as a bridesmaid.  With purple ties, purple flowers, purple jewellery, purple bridesmaids and a purple wedding cake it made a spectacular purple party!  Even some guests showed support by dressing in purple too.  It was a very special day, with many friends and family who travelled from far and wide.

Due to their PP experience, she and Will are passionate about the work of APP and decided to raise funds with a donation to APP instead of providing wedding favours. On the wedding tables they placed printed cards with the message "To celebrate the marriage of Will and Jo on the 2nd January 2013, a donation has been made to Action on Postpartum Psychosis, a charity close to our hearts". Jo and Will also received a generous wedding gift of a cheque to APP. We would like to thank Jo, Will and their friends and family for their generosity and thinking of us on their special day. Congratulations to you both and wishing you all the best in the future!

23 February 2013

New Funding for National Campaign Development

Action on Postpartum Psychosis on behalf of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance has recently been awarded funds by Comic Relief to employ a Campaign Development Manager. The Campaign Development Manager, Emily Slater, is compiling key research about the impact of antenatal and postnatal mental illness, as well as working with a number of Alliance members and key stakeholders to develop an effective strategy for a future campaign (being launched, funding permitting, in spring 2014). The campaign is likely to call for all women in Great Britain to have equal access to quality treatment in the event of developing an antenatal or postnatal mental illness (including postpartum psychosis). The work of Emily and others is helping to ensure that this campaign call can be communicated in the most effective way to those policy-makers with most influence. It is an extremely exciting piece of work and APP is grateful to Comic Relief for funding this crucial development work.

 

 

19 February 2013

Review of Maternity Services in the UK- Interview with Debra Bick

For the second article in APP’s review of maternity services in the UK, Clare Dolman speaks to Debra Bick, Professor of Evidence Based Midwifery Practice at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King’s College London, about how the services are working – or not working – for women with mental health problems.

Prof. Bick has long been interested in the particular needs of women with mental health problems during the perinatal period, and is outspoken about her concern that their needs are not sufficiently prioritized. When we meet at her London office, she cites the ‘Campaign for Normal Birth’ currently run by the Royal College of Midwives which is focusing on the promotion of normal births as an example of how postnatal  needs are sometimes overlooked.

‘In that campaign, the focus is labour and birth and nothing really before and certainly nothing beyond’, she says. It is preparation and provision for the longer-term picture which is of especial importance for women who suffer psychiatric illness.  Maternity services should promote a continuum of effective care through a woman’s pregnancy, birth and beyond. ‘We have these drivers in our delivery suites to make sure that 75% of women get one to one care in labour from a midwife, a target which means that managers will take midwives off the postnatal ward or from the community to achieve that, and so women don’t get the care when they’re going home and it’s quite dire actually’, she says. (more…)