Congratulations to the Wolverhampton Substance Misuse Service team, our Team of the Month for December. The team has been recognised for their hard work and compassion, going above and beyond for the service users and delivering a high standard service despite low staffing. We can read more about our nominated teams below.

I would like to nominate the clinical team at recovery near you for all the hard work and compassion they have shown over the last six months, we have been adapting and developing service over last few months especially with having the SSMTRG money to enhance the service delivery. The team has gone above and beyond for the clients we deliver the service to.

Some examples of how we have improved the service for our service users I need to mention the DALT team, Carolyn Musgrave Team Manager, this is our service that is based at Royal Wolverhampton Trust New Cross Hospital the team advise medics, nurses on prescribing for substance misuse and ensuring our service users have a seamless service with dignity and respect.

Emily Dalloway, Senior Health and Wellbeing Nurse has been traveling around Wolverhampton with her fibro scanner getting into areas where we have hard to reach clients such as the Gurdwara, GP surgeries. On Sunday 24 November she went to Sedgley Street Gurdwara and scanned 37 clients in four hours, she has referred 14 people to the specialist liver team at New Cross Hospital.

Harriet Palmer has worked very hard over the last few months putting together a day hub programme in order for service users to be offered an alternative from going away to rehab, they can stay in local area. This has been discussed with service users around what they would like and need and Hattie’s background before moving to Wolverhampton was inpatient rehab. The day hub programme is called Rise (resilience, inspirational, strength and experience).

Nathan Lowe is such an inspiration to the team and a greatly respected role model, he has worked on a pathway straight from SPOC for service users who are suitable to alcohol ambulatory detoxification. This has reduced the time a client has to wait for a community detoxification and has achieved above KPI targets for successful alcohol completions. We have looked at a snapshot of some clients who have been through this pathway and they are still alcohol free.

Last piece of work I would like to showcase is Diane Smith Harris, who has completed a new treatment pathway for buvidal clients, this is a time limited piece of work and it is over six months. At the end the client successfully ends treatment into recovery, we use IPS to help the clients into work or training and has proved to be very successful in clients requesting this pathway the whole team are dedicated in delivering a high standard service despite having low staffing and the service going out to tender, the team show dedication and commitment daily.

Team of the Month