Advocacy in hospital
- People First Dorset
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
Hi readers, it’s Kerry here this week, and next, as Emily can’t make it. She’ll update you on what she’s been doing in a couple of weeks!
This week, in my work for People First Dorset, we met some people from the NHS online. One of them was Gavin Harding, a senior learning disability advisor, using his lived experience of having a learning disability, to make things better. I’ve not seen Gavin, at least in person, since we worked together on the National Forum. He was also a co-chair.
He's done lots of good work since, such as making sure people ending up in mental health hospitals, get the advocacy support they need. On the side, he was the first Mayor to be elected with a learning disability, and awarded an MBE.
We spoke with Gavin about how we might help this work, that people get peer support if they need it, or if any of us with lived experience might go into hospitals to see if they meet the needs of people with a learning disability, if they end up in there.
It got me thinking about what support I, or any of my friends, might need if we ever had a mental health crisis and had to go into hospital. I suppose it can happen to any of us. What would you want in that situation? I’d want someone who knows me to make sure the staff treating me understood my needs. I mean, if any of us had to go into a hospital, we probably wouldn’t exactly be ourselves. So having someone who knows and can advocate for us, would be important.
I guess the final thing is to make sure that person likes you, and that they’d be saying things in your best interests – or it could go horribly wrong!
The writers of the Our View column are supported in their editing by People First Dorset - a charity led and run by people with learning disabilities with support from staff
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