Regional Eating Disorder Unit
The 12 bedded unit offers a specialist inpatient service for individuals requiring treatment for eating disorders, although based within Lothian the service admits patients from Lothian, Fife, Forth Valley and the Borders. They offer a highly specialist service for females and males over the age of 18 with a diagnosis of an eating disorder that have been assessed by their community teams and are considered to need a more intensive period of support.
They aim to provide a patient centred approach to meet the individual needs of the patient, based on clinical expertise and clinical practice. They pull on expertise from an experienced multi-disciplinary team including psychiatrists, psychologist, mental health nurses, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and dietitians.
Nursing staff are provided a tailored induction and training to meet the competencies with the specialist role. There are career progression opportunities through the nursing bands/roles and future possible development of Advance Nurse Practitioner and nurse therapist roles.
The Regional Perinatal Mental Health Mother & Baby Unit
The unit is a regional inpatient service covering five NHS Health Board areas – Highland, Borders, Fife, Tayside and Lothian. The unit can accommodate six mums and their babies at any one time where the child is under one year old. This means that women can receive appropriate care and treatment for their mental illness, whilst being able to maintain and develop their parenting role and relationship with their infant. The unit was awarded accreditation with excellence by the Royal College of Psychiatry in 2013 and has maintained this since.
The nursing staff have an induction tailored to the speciality, additional training on specialist risk assessment, infant mental health, treatment of perinatal mental health and psychological interventions.
There is opportunity for career progression through all the nursing bands within the unit, also supporting and developing mental health nursing and midwifery students. The unit has close links with Scottish Perinatal Mental Health managed clinical network and joint training and development opportunities with the Glasgow unit.
The Scottish Mental Health Service for Deaf People
The team provides a community specialist mental health service for patients aged 18 and over with mental health problems of a moderate to severe nature where assessment and/or treatment is complicated by difficulties in communication across all NHS Scotland health boards.
An Individual’s care, treatment and support remains the responsibility of the NHS Board; the service offers specialist advice to local mental health teams and specialist support in assessment and treatment as required.
The service also provides advice and facilitates training in communication, deaf awareness and cultural issues to mental health professionals and other care providers.
The team consists of band 7 Advance Nurse Practitioners, consultant psychiatry, Occupational therapy and admin. All staff are fully training in British Sign Language.
Pan Lothian Community Perinatal Mental Health Service
The team provides assessment and care for pregnant and postnatal (up to 12 months) women with moderate to severe mental disorder who require secondary care mental health services across the whole of NHS Lothian (average birth rate of 9,000).
The team is a specialist multidisciplinary team including psychiatry, psychology, social work, occupational therapy, nursery nurses, community psychiatric nurses, parent-infant psychotherapist and midwifery. The band 6 community psychiatric nurses, supported by the band 7 team leader, carry a community caseload size agreed within the service and in line with their WTE. The staff work across all areas within NHS Lothian, working on multiple sites and community hospitals.
