Little Feet pursues PALS- an update in the Mental Health Inpatients Blogging debate
January 6, 2012 2 Comments
As I wrote in an earlier post, blogger @ChaosandControl, or Little Feet, was recently prevented from blogging whilst an Inpatient in an Acute Mental Health Unit by staff who confiscated her phone to prevent her having access.
Without my knowledge, staff read through the archives of my blog and my twitter stream…
…During a subsequent meeting with staff, I was notified that the archives of my blog and twitter stream had been read. I was asked to stop blogging and my mobile phone was confiscated for 24 hours. I agreed to stop blogging for the duration of my admission. While I did not want to stop blogging, I agreed to because I felt to do otherwise might have been detrimental to the care I was receiving. I enquired as to whether it would be possible to retain my mobile phone but agree with staff not to blog. I was informed that this would not be possible because a team decision had been made to confiscate my mobile phone.
As a result, she has had to re-evaluate her existence as an award winning mental health blogger and may feel unable to continue to operate her Chaos and Control blog.
She has updated her blog readers with the news that she has emailed her Trust PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) with a view to gaining clarity about the decisions made in this case, and to highlight what may be a misguided interpretation of current guidance from the Care Quality Commission about Inpatient’s rights to communication.
Little Feet also makes clear that she has no wish to apportion blame to the staff who made this decision, since they were not in possession with up to date training in the ethics and guidance in this area.
She also points out the potential risks faced commonly by whistleblowers and has (as we would expect from an accomplished blogger) a fair-minded assessment of the internet convention for right to reply, in this case by the Trust concerned.
I feel it important that I pursue this matter through local channels in the first instance. I do not want to cause detriment to my current or future care I may need by skipping straight to national media and social networking sites. I believe the Happyvillesire Mental Health Trust should have the opportunity to respond to my request for clarification of policies.
As was pointed out during the #nhssm Tweetchat this week:
The ‘Streisand effect‘ is the inverse relationship between the attempt to surpress information and the internet’s tendency to make the information freely available and easily searchable due to the interest such decisions provoke.
So, the Trust concerned is now decidedly on the back foot in terms of managing the message about their brand, and only Little Feet’s sensitivity in leaving them unnamed is holding back the opprobrium of the blogging community. I need hardly point out the irony of this, since confidentiality was cited as a justification for the Trust’s actions!
As we saw in my last post, the Trust’s reactions in this case were probably due to a lack of preparedness for the new networked reality. We saw how they are occupying the bottom layers of Maslow’s hierarchy, whilst Little Feet comfortably negotiates higher levels.
How could the Trust learn from this matter, and put in place measures to prevent this kind of publicity and negative brand association in future?
The organisation, or at least some individuals within the organisation need to make their journey up the levels of this pyramid to improve their business readiness for a future scenario.
Traditionally, the individuals within a Trust organisation concerned with the perception of their brand are located within the corporate Communications structure. We can see that in this instance, as in many other potential scenarios, this is a risky situation. Communications professionals are not embedded into practice areas, where these judgments will, increasingly, have to be made by clinical staff and managers. So, even if a Trust had a competent communications structure that was conversant with the conventions and corporate risks inherent in social media, they may not be available to consult with clinical staff in a timely manner.
It becomes clear that in fact it is the clinical, customer facing roles that must develop capacity and be sufficiently strategically resourced and trained in current corporate policy in this area. This flies in the face of the traditionally centralized business model for corporate communications within the NHS.
What is the solution?
Communications through social media are an organisational game-changer. We must move with the times and adopt a new way of doing business, where we empower clinical staff with the training and resources they need to support the efforts towards self-actualisation of people in recovery.
How do we do this? We must re-visit our centralised model of corporate communications, following on from the lead shown by notable public sector organisations such as Monmouthshire County Council, who recently allowed all employees to respond directly to customer enquiries. We should all prepare to move towards a “honeycomb” communications model, where all members of an organisation are empowered to understand the rules and conventions that govern response in the social space. Staff should be resourced such that they are able to identify which communications should be handled by communications professionals, and feel confident to handle the rest as the excellent brand ambassadors that NHS staff invariably are.
The Slideshare presentation linked to in the last post includes an excellent triage flowchart for staff using Social Media by Jeremiah Owyang. This could be used as a baseline for your policy.
Source:DavidArmano,Edelman (http://www.flickr.com/photos/7855449@N02/5042953763)
@HelReynolds of Monmouthshire County Council and ReynoldsPR.com has some tips- I recommend the article.
What do you think?
If you would like me to help your business change the centralised communications culture, and train your staff in how to respond on the social web, please don’t hesitate to contact me tech4health(at)gmail(dot)com.
About Claire
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Claire, this is such an interesting issue. I never imagined a citizen of a democracy having their freedom to speak freely through their blog taken away from them. Perhaps I am naive or too trusting! I also hadn’t heard of the term the ‘Streisand effect’, it is definitely a phenomenon seen in day to day life now that social media has become pervasive.