“The stitches that keep homeless and health professionals working together”
First published September 2015 by Tom K
Asked to pen a few words regarding my experience of Groundswell, I couldn’t have been more enthused, I mean after all I’ve now been being assisted and helped by Groundswell for approaching two years. So I have two years of opinions to write about, two years of insights of blind sights, two years of suggestions to put forward.
Groundswell has assisted me to probably something like 70 to 100 medical appointments, some of them repetitive treatments and others, especially of late, venturing into new areas of my general bad health. Groundswell have achieved the not so small miracle of keeping me as an outpatient rather than an inpatient. I have not been an inpatient from the day Groundswell became involved consistently attending appointments successfully.
Prior to Groundswell’s involvement I was an inpatient, on average 3 of the previous 6 months at several local hospitals all for short 3 – 5 day stays. This would have continued without the welcomed intervention of Groundswell, and especially of a certain person’s unquantifiable, magical ability to help clients come to their own decisions. This consistently has the best outcome for all involved, even if one doesn’t always fully understand how one got to the decisions when all bets would have gone the other way!
Simply put, Groundswell assists clients to reach their medical goals, whilst instilling a real sense of achievement. They coordinate Drs, hospitals, dentists, hostel keyworkers and outreach workers to all work in my, the clients, best interest. As a client, I have also been repeatedly offered opportunities to assist and possibly become a volunteer to other clients in the future. I’ve also participated in, workshops on health, cooking groups and coffee mornings within hostels run by Groundswell volunteers.
Simply put, Groundswell are the stitches that keep the homeless and health professionals working together. In today’s current eco-social environment Groundswell will become, I believe, a louder and clearer voice in the way forward for a successful charity who will have different health professionals and services reaching for their support, and give clients a far smoother interaction with the NHS. As for the opinion of the NHS view regarding no missed appointments and much much more. I imagine could only lead to a great big professional pat on the back to Groundswell.