Tuesday September 12th
Julia Barton - NHS, Warren Center, children's care
This morning, we heard a talk about the NHS. Julia Barton, who is the Head of Learning and Development, visited us and presented a very well structured and interesting overview about the history, aims and structure of the NHS. We had already heard a lot about the NHS during our stay at Solent University, but this talk really put things together and completed this topic. Julia Barton is a very good speaker and received great participation, interest and interaction. She started her career as a nurse, which really influences her opinion and way of presenting things. Now she is in a management position, but she also knows how things work down at the bottom.
She confronted us with some problems such as, for instance, the conflict: business educated people without medical knowledge in management positions or medical educated people without business education? – the same area of conflict also can be find in Austria.
Should a hospital still be organized and lead in the traditional way, or should it be re-structured and managed like a company?
We were given some thought-provoking-impulses and it is a very calming feeling to know that the problems we are confronted with in Austria also exist in other countries.
In the afternoon, we went to The Warren Center, which is a children service and learning organisation. First some team members of the children’s assessment team told us some facts about their work and field of duty. They are divided into three sections and are responsible for providing information, dealing with referrals and finally finding a solution how to help the concerned child or family.
Then, Marilyn Laurie informed us about how the organisation works with families, how they provide support to parents and how they treat them in the right way to achieve the maximum outcome. Their guideline is to work together with the families and not just tell them what to do.
After this overview, we did a role-play in which we were confronted with the everyday life of a social worker. It was very interesting for us to get to know a social worker’s point of view.
Adoption was our next topic. Di Ferry, who spoke about this topic, is responsible for every adoption that takes place in Southampton. We got to know everything about how an adoption works and how the legal situation looks like, which is quite different to ours. Just to give you a short example: In GB, it is no problem for singles or same-sex couples to adopt – this is not possible in Austria.
The last talk of the day was about what kind of services are available for young people leaving care. The organisation Pathways tries to help children after being in foster care or other care to find their way back into normal life, including things such as accommodation, work or education. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and for that reason, the talk was a really very, very short overview.
After this exhausting but also interesting afternoon, we went back to our residence and enjoyed the evening by working on our projects. :-)
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Monday September 11th
National trust, Phillip's house, Salisbury
Today we visited a beautiful property surrounded by the amazing landscape of the countryside near Salisbury. It is called Phillips house and belongs to the National trust organisation. The aim of this organisation is to conserve historical buildings and interesting landscapes. They try to give the general public the possibility to enter and visit these places but on the other side they want to prevent them from tumbling down. In some points these two aims are contradictory. (For instance, each visitor means some kind of abrasion of the building.)
Today a family with 3 kids lives in the house, they have bought it some years ago, from the National trust, for a very low price. They do some visitor tours, marriages and shoots at the house, to earn money for the conservation of the building and to fulfill the aims of National Trust.
We had a guided tour through some of the rooms and were given information about the interesting history of the building. Teatime at the veranda of Phillip’s house, with the amazing view over the Rosamunde Pilcher Movie – landscape, was a perfect time for listening to some anecdotes of the house owner or just relaxing and enjoying the pittoresque surroundings. After this short break, a person from the National Trust told us some facts about the aims, the structure and the work of the organisation. National Trust is the third biggest landlord in GB, they own buildings like Phillip’s house but also whole villages and coastlines. The organisation has 43000 volunteers working for them all over the country!!!
After this talk, our bus took us to Salisbury, where we spent our afternoon on shopping in this lovely city.
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Saturday and Sunday September 9th and 10th
Weekend ;o)
On our first, and as well single, weekend in Southampton we decided to relax and get to know the city a little bit better. No sooner said than done! On both days, saturday and sunday, the weather was fantastic.
On Saturday we were chilling in the parks, went for a shopping tour into the city and ate at the world´s most famous "Fish and Chips" restaurant. In the evening we and some of our classmates made some funny experiences with the night life in Southampton, which is quite different from ours. But it has been blithe and we enjoyed the evening.
On Sunday we were lying in the park, playing frisbee and hackysack and we just relished the sun.
So it was a felicitous weekend and now we are looking forward to the coming exhausting but interesting week.
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Our "Take Home Value" of the first week in Southampton
personal impressions
During our first week in Southampton, we’ve made lots of experiences. We are quite successfully working towards the aim to improve our English language abilities during the stay. We've also learned a lot about how the social and health system is organized in Britain.
But what our group really considers as a THV, was the afternoon we spent at SureStart, which is a parental consultation centre. Parents can find information about how to live with their children and how to treat them right. This service is especially aimed at families in need. The few hours we spent at SureStart were shocking and fascinating at the same time. In our opinion, it is absolutely unbelievable what bad conditions some children grow up in, in a welfare state like Great Britain, whether poverty or child abuse is concerned.
But on the other hand, it is very reassuring to know that the state is working against this problem, and organizations like SureStart exist.
The people at SureStart were extremely open-minded and positive. The atmosphere was very welcoming and we really had the impression that the people working there are willing to help others and trying to give people a chance for a better life.
Stefanie Inka Theresa Amelie
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Friday September 8th
MacMillan, cancer support 
Today afternoon, we went to MacMillan Cancer Information and Support Center at St Mary’s Hospital. The MacMillan Organisation has got trusts all over Great Britain. Their aim is to support people with cancer by offering different services. For example, they offer complementary therapies like massages or aroma therapies. But patients can also find a “Listening Ear” and a person who helps them to deal with the question of how and where to get benefits from the state.
Everybody, both patients and relatives, can just walk into this center without having an appointment and get help and support.
The atmosphere at the center was very positive, even though they deal with such a difficult topic. The organisation seemed to be like an oases, where bad feelings and problems just can be left behind and the soul can reload energy again.
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Thursday September 7th
manager qualities, Health & Community Care, health and social care cooperation
Today in Carolyn's class we discussed certain qualities that make up a "good" or a "bad" manager. Among the qualities we found every manager should posess were a sense of responsibility, decisiveness, organisation and ability to inspire. We also pondered on whether women make better managers than men.
In the afternoon, we had a visit by Andy Biddle of the Health & Community Care Division of the City Council. He talked about the importance of cooperation between social and health care services; e.g. what kind of care people need who have recently been discharged from the hospital or how Rapid Response Intervention can prevent unnecessary A&E hospital visits. An interesting little detail he mentioned was the fact that the people of this unit need to inform the elected Council decision-makers about their activities to facilitate the dividing up of funds and allocation of resources. It is a good reminder for us all that not all factual decision making in any government body is done by our elected officials - the civil servants behind the scenes can sometimes have quite an influence.
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Wednesday September 6th
NHS, community hospital, SureStart, children's care
Today was an exciting day, because we got to visit two institutions.
Western Community Hospital
David Paynton, who is the Executive Director of Southampton City Primary Care Trust, talked to us about the NHS changing from being exclusively a provider into being more a commissioner, about several providers working under the NHS brand, about the increased fluidity of the NHS market and, the nevertheless significant need for regulation, and about structuring the market and measuring the quality around care pathways.
After David, we had Sheila Brooke, Head of Unscheduled Care, talk to us about NHS Walk in Centres. These nurse-led centres are based in the communities, open seven days a week from 7am to 10 pm, to allow easy access for all. They offer treatment for minor injuries and illnesses, for instance ear aches and emergency contraception, as well as promoting public health. In contrast to Austria, praticularly trained nurses are also allowed to prescribe medicine and make direct referrals into hospitals.
Finally, Fiona Baldwin and Judith May talked about community hospitals and we took a tour of the premises, visiting the stroke ward.
SureStart Children Centre
In the afternoon, we visited one of the SureStart Children Centres in Southampton. It is a council service offering activities and advice for children up to five and their parents. It aims to promote the health, safety and well-being of the children and parents by offering things such as soft play, promoting breast feeding, preventing the children being looked after by the local authorities, organised trips, support to parents in training and employment, dental services, midwives and dad groups.
During our visit, we first had a presentation by Gill Bennett, the manager of the centre, then took a tour of the newly built centre with its play rooms, kitchen, garden, clinical rooms and other rooms, watched a DVD about the dads' activities and heard another presentation about the Daddy Cool Project by Scott Hickman. The visit was thought-provoking and we found many of the practices quite well-developed and innovative. We will explore this area further in our project essay and presentation.
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Tuesday September 5th
housing, housing associations
Today we heard two highly interesting presentations about housing.
Housing in Southampton
Barbara Compton, Head of Housing Solutions at the City Council, gave us an insight into housing in Britain generally and Southampton particularly. The facts that we found especially interesting were
- that all issues related to housing, from homelessness, to sheltered homes for the elderly and to interest-free loans for renovating owner-occupied houses, are all under the roof of this one housing authority. This probably leads to better town planning and quality of living as well as removing the stigma attached to homelessness and supported housing
- that there is a bidding system for affordable housing applicants. This allows them to express preferences about where they want to live and thus truly create communities
Atlantic Housing Association
The second speech was given by Anthony Lee from the Atlantic Housing Association. He explained the duties of the association and the various types of accomodation they offer such as refuges, student lettings, social housing, and shared ownership. The association attempts to build real communities instead of only providing people with a place to live. This idea is illustrated, for instance, in the choice-based letting system and the separate list for key workers.
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Monday September 4th
welcome, NHS introduction, health care systems
First thing in the morning, we had a welcome from Carolyn, who is the course manager, as well as Colin and Peter. Afterwards we had a tour of the campus and an English test to measure our level of English.
First contact with the NHS
In the afternoon, we first had a lesson with Kevin, where we talked about the English Health System, particularly the NHS (National Health Service) and more specifically Southampton City Primary Care Trust. We also made comparisons between the Austrian and the English health care systems. One particular difference that caught our eye was that English GPs (general practitioner) get payed entirely according to the number of patients on their list. This was our first contact with the NHS. We realised how different the challenges are that the NHS may face compared to the Austrian health system; for instance, London has the same population as all of Austria.
The next lesson was with Trish, and we spent it preparing and delivering short group presentations about various periods in the history of the NHS. We learned that the NHS was founded in 1948 and has since gone through significant changes due to developments in medicine and technology as well as organisational structure.
We ended the day at the Language Centre, where we started to work on a webquest about the NHS.
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Sunday September 3rd
arrival, residence, first impressions
Whether by plane, coach or train, we all got to Southampton on Sunday. We were happy to find that the residence was not only centrally located but also nicely equipped and of a high standard. All the staff were very friendly. Our first impression of the city was that it is rather peaceful and beautiful.
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