Rhodes Wood Hospital | Elysium Healthcare

Mar 20th, 2023

Mar 5th, 2023

My daughter unfortunately suffers from anorexia and, following admission to hospital due to extreme weightloss, was offered a place at Rhodes Wood on the Rainbow Ward. We are extremely grateful to all the staff who have worked so hard to get her from her absolute lowest in Jan 22 to where she is now. It has been a long journey (although discharged the journey continues as we move to community-based therapies), and we have had plenty of downs as well as ups during her stay but the staff have been there for her and believed in her throughout and have worked hard to get her to where she is now. The attached school has also been excellent in helping her keep up with her education during her stay. She has made firm friends with many others on the ward and bonded with so many of the staff. For us, RW has given us back our daughter and we are now in a much better position to continue the journey together with her.
Jan 27th, 2023

If youre reading this review, Im sure you, or someone you love is having a tough time. Its also likely youve typed Rhodes Wood Hospital into a search engine and may be having the same doubts we had as parents when our young person was struggling. I only hope you dont allow these to influence your decision. RWH has given our young person back the life which the dark cloud of anorexia took away. Please read the last sentence again. Even during the toughest moments, the staff at RWH never gave up on their commitment to helping our young person come home. Were in a much better place now with a young person who is finally enjoying life again. If you are fortunate enough to be offered the support of the team at RWH, our experience is of a hospital that has worked continually to improve and provides the compassion, care and support needed to help when the light at the end of the tunnel can seem so far away.
Oct 22nd, 2022

Please dont be put off by reviews from the patient thats suffering this awful illness. My daughter would give it 1 - 2 stars as well. I am a therapist myself and mental illness isn't rational, its distorting and misleading to the sufferer. I do think that trauma can be sustained in hospitals e.g. N.G. tube feeding & restraints, my daughter has suffered too and has lead to trauma therapy outside. Being force feed and held down when food is the enemy IS TRAUMATISING! but their job is to keep them alive and so far no other way has been found in the hospitals. My daughter spent 11 months at Rhodeswood. to start with the first 2 -3 months was bad, we had some incidents involving night staff that were questionable to say the least, there was investigations carried out but we didnt feel the right outcome was reached. We had a new consultant take over, Dr Kamara, and from then on I felt it started to improve. he was very caring, really listened to our concerns & alway followed up. We built a good repore with him over the months. the day staff were great on cheshunt, especially Jackie, Bryony, Elouise, Denisa, Effi (her teacher), Farih (her 1 to 1 therapist), Kevin (family therapist). I don't know what we would have done at times without kevin, he kept us sane through the whole experience. The negative would be the night staff, thats why its 4 stars. Regardless of the fact we were told they were trained, actual actions showed the opposite. there was many times I had to calm my daughter down, including, staff talking about food, calories and diets in front of her, 1 to 1's leaving her alone in the room, staff asking her questions about what she wants them to do e.g. giving her control of choice (which induced anxiety attacks), not knowing what to do in an anxiety/panic attack? falling asleep (which instigated self harm), saying 'just swallow it', all these issues were brought up at the time, the day staff did everything they could to improve it. but most of the night staff were not capable of working in an eating disorder hospital. This wasnt isolated to Rhodeswood, as I would hear other similar stories in support groups. But, it is an issue that needs to be addressed country wide. the general answer I would hear was the night staff were limited in availability, so this in turn translated to we get what we can and that's it. but that's not good enough. something has to be done to change this. other than that I think the staff worked hard, they work under immense pressure and I don't envy their job. If I could improve Rhodeswood I would be more through in training with night staff and checking regularly that they understand eating disorders. Training should be repeated regularly. If a member of staff who has made a big mistake with a patient and is given training and reprimanded, makes another big mistake they should be banned from working their have it put on their record. they shouldn't be given continuous chances this message reads 'i can do what i like'. on another note, there should be more 1 to 1 therapy provided. 1 50 minute session a week is not enough for mental illness. it's bad enough that it is the maximum on the outside, but if your admitted it should be more intensive. e.g. more 1 to 1 therapist available so each therapist has less patients and can work with them more often. yes its money, but the results I feel will be more positive, and preventing relapse is the goal. NOTE FOR PARENTS ETC: if you have a loved one in an eating disorder hospital please go to the BEAT website. They have lots of FREE help, including support groups (SOLICE) and training including; resilience and developing dolphin, which run day and evening. They helped me enormously. Especially talking with other parents, it makes you feel like your not going insane or doing the wrong things. Eating disorders in the first instance is traumatic to the suffer, but it can be equally traumatic to the parent/loved one watching someone you love suffer so much, you can feel helpless. but BEAT really helped.
Jan 6th, 2023