Skellern “comes home “ to The Cassel
“Eileen Skellern has come home to The Cassel”, according to Dr Gary Winship, who presented the prestigious annual Skellern Lecture at the Cassel hospital in its centenary year on 9 June. Dr Winship said he was “absolutely delighted” to deliver the 2021/22 lecture and called The Cassel “one of the best hospitals in the world.”
In his lecture “The Modern Mental Health Nurse- Where Now for Skellern’s Vision”, Dr Winship outlined the history of mental health nursing and highlighted pioneering Eileen Skellern’s influence and contribution to the development of psychosocial nursing and the creation of a democratic therapeutic environment at the Cassel. Emeritus Professor Kevin Gournay received the 2021/22 Lifetime Achievement Award.
A new category of award – The Cassel Co-Production Award- was presented for the first time to Cassel nurse Daksha Samani and to Moria and Phil Hunter, whose daughter had been a Cassel patient. Building on their experience as parents of an in-patient, they set up the carers’ forum to provide a support network for parents to bridge the gap between the hospital and patients’ families. They said: “ We’re really humbled. One of the reasons for the group was to give something back. We’re so grateful our daughter is still alive because of The Cassel Hospital.”
As Covid lockdown had prevented the live 2020 lecture and awards, this year’s event included the presentations to the 2020 winners. Dr Russell Ashmore was awarded a plaque for delivering the Skellern lecture and Professor Eimear Muir Cochran received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.
CHCT Chair Oliver Dale commented: “Gary Winship gave a brilliant account of the history of ideas that led Eileen Skellern to develop psychosocial nursing. Many will be familiar with Tom Main’s “The Ailment”, but what is less well known is the approach set out in this 1957 paper was driven in a large part by these changes in nursing practice.
“Drawing on Peplau, another hugely influential nurse of the time, Main and Skellern strove to create a therapeutic environment that was ultimately democratic. This demanded a courage to consider the hospital’s unhealthy aspects as well as the patients’ healthy ones and their capacity to contribute to running the hospital.
“Today, the patients continue to contribute to the running of the hospital and care for the community’s members. Such an approach is key to what allows the staff and patients at the Cassel to get alongside one another and, arguably, was the beginnings of what we now call co-production.
“Gary’s talk also set out the importance of the psychoanalytic underpinning of this psychodynamic approach, and how the Cassel maintains a culture of enquiry in order to keep live to the ever present unhelpful processes that can overwhelm our thinking. Such an attitude remains relevant for us all, as it is through which honest and enduring therapeutic relationships are created. Wherever we work, ward or in the community, these developments in nursing practice were critical to understanding how we provide containment.”
Watch the live recording here.