Park Lodge - Wolverhampton

Leah W.

Before you read this review, i would like to say that everyone's experience is different. This is mine.
Park Lodge specialise in complex cases, and if you are being admitted here I promise you that they will validate your struggles, and that you will be okay.

At Park Lodge I was never belittled for my mental illness, compared to my other units, where there was incidents of abuse. I always felt listened to by the doctors and they did what was best for me. The care you receive at Park Lodge is catered towards you, and you are in control. This can be helpful for some patients, and I found this especially helped me. There is also the option for staff to take control of your care, depending on individual preference. Park Lodge knows what they're doing, and I never once doubted how they cared for me, if that makes sense. I was nursed on lots of different observations, given my presentation, they are very observant and also take your feelings into consideration when increasing/decreasing these. There is always someone on your observations, and they actually do their jobs. I found in my other units staff were not focused on their jobs, and Park Lodge's staff, in contrast, really do put 100% in every day to ensure their patients safety. You will be looked after here.

Staff are so supportive during feeds and meal support, no matter your presentation, and there is 0 judgement. They understand how hard it is for us patients and care so, so much. I can't stress enough how supported I felt during my stay. The nurses always have lovely things to say and will brighten up your day. The doctors listened to me, for the first time ever whilst being an inpatient, and I think that is so, so important.

One other thing about Park lodge is the pet protocol — and how that absolutely saved my life.
When I was nursed at park lodge, I was encouraged to have a pet to give me reasons. Reasons to keep going, reasons to eat, reasons to stay alive, etc, because you're looking after someone else. I understand the pet protocol isn't for everyone, but for me, this absolutely changed me for the better. I adopted two giant African land snails during my stay at PL, Sidney and Simon. They helped show me that being accountable is so important, and that being responsible for something other than yourself can actually be quite fun! It definitely took the edge off during my stay, and I can say with confidence this protocol has helped so many other patients to make progress as well as me. Shout out to Sharon for making these things possible! 🙂

The Education team at PL helped me get out of bed every morning and gave me structure to my day, something I lacked for a very long time. One amazing thing about the education team here is that it's all at your own pace, and they will support you throughout the way. They are extremely accommodating to your needs regardless if you have a diagnosis or not. I always found that they were all amazing listeners too, whether it was about education or my mental health, I knew I had an extra shoulder to lean on. Stumpy the ward pet was always there to support me when I was having a little cry & I'm so grateful for him to the point where, when I was discharged, I was able to care for my very own lizard!

I would also like to say that most units are there to keep you safe and nothing more, this unit is not like that. I was able to genuinely find recovery at Park lodge. The doctors always make sure you have a robust care package upon discharge, and if you don't feel like you have that, they will go out of their way to get one for you. I felt so safe at Park lodge and I knew that if I was to struggle, staff would be there for me.

My stay at Park lodge was so beneficial for my mental health, and I recommend this service to others whether you're a patient or a staff member.

I would like to mention these staff members that went above and beyond to make my stay as comfortable as possible.
Chloe, Jaya, Emmanuel, Shanza, Ronald, Dr Chaudhry, Dr Kahn, Sharon, Declan, Sarah, Grace, Maria & Adrian

Thankyou for reading 🙂

adriana R.

I want to start by saying that any admission to any psychiatric hospital will be traumatic as you will be taken away from your family and put in a building full of extremely unwell people who will require restraints and will hurt themselves. However, many hospitals offer good psychological support to patients but Park Lodge did not. Most of the support workers who you spend most of your time with are not trained to work with eating disorders so often make triggering and unhelpful comments. I was there for nearly 5 months yet in my therapeutic sessions I never actually worked on my eating disorder despite asking to. Despite being told before my admission that this would happen, I never got any relapse prevention work. Because I was an informal patient (not sectioned) on multiple occasions I didn’t manage meals and they didn’t do anything. It is very clear that if you are eating, the staff no longer care about you. Their focus is on the patients with NG tubes who have frequent incidents. An example of this is that meals would arrive and no staff would alert you or tell you it’s time. Staff very frequently wouldn’t turn up to meal support either. I had a bad experience with the family therapist who would tell me to follow my meal plan and not go over it to ensure I didn’t ‘go to the other side’ which only reinforced my anorexic thinking. He also brought up topics that my mum had told him not to as they were unhelpful and just making me worse but he refused. When I said I no longer wanted to see him because he was making me worse I was told that I wasn’t complying with my treatment. Additionally, the psychiatrist would tell patients off for struggling instead of getting them the support they needed. The only reason my stay here made me recover was because I knew that I would not get out if I relied on staff support as there was none so I had to work for myself. The way that the staff treat some patients who are unable to advocate for themselves was so disgraceful. For example a patient would be laughed at while getting restrained and she was denied things for no reason such as being able to know the time.
However, not all things about my stay at Park Lodge. The teaching staff were so lovely and so supportive. They helped me to write my CV and even got me a job for when I came out. The activities coordinators were also amazing and I made some lovely memories in their sessions. If you have leave you also have the opportunity to go on a trip once a week which is so crucial when you are stuck in a ward. A few support workers such as Janet and Emmanuel helped me greatly and were always so supportive and so kind to me. I truly don’t believe I would’ve made it out without the support of them and some others including the ward manager Kelly Ward who did everything she could to make it easier for me to drink my supplements on my first day which included going to the shops to get me straws. Unfortunately many units will be worse than Park Lodge and I have heard horrors from patients who had been in other units in the past. If you are considering sending your child or going to Park Lodge yourself, don’t let this review stop you because it’s certainly not one of the worst and I do hope that it will improve in the future as it’s fairly new.
I would like to say that all the other reviews giving 5 stars have been written by staff who currently work there.

Ronald R.

Frank M.

Ion I.

DONALD S. T.

Stephen O. M.

Sandra E.