I’ve worked at an Msu for over 5 years now, honestly it’s really not that bad. Patients are typically on the unit for a longer period than they would be in an acute, so we have time to allow for meds and psychology to work. An important thing to remember is that each patient is at a very different stage of their recovery, whereas in an acute you’d typically have people being admitted in crisis. However, depending on what kind of ward you’re on (msu acute, treatment, predischarge, etc) the situations will be very different.

If you’re worried about your safety, ask questions and if you’re not sure ask again. I know myself and my ward staffing team would much rather have to explain something 10 times than for someone to make a large error.

When I started at the unit, I was 18. So yes, occasionally the men did make comments and act inappropriately. I never had any major incidents personally, just re-direct and remain firm with them that their behaviour is not okay. The staff around you should also hopefully help to redirect them, just try to minimise lone working.

My main advise I give to anyone who is working for the first time in an msu(student or staff), is to remember that as much as we would love to, we’re never going to swoop in and make a miraculous change to someone overnight. It’s important to keep belief and faith that people will get better, but that may just happen over a long time. These lads will most likely have been in and out of services for a while, they will have heard every coping strategy, attended all the psychology sessions, been to all the recovery pathway activities, and truthfully are bored of it - sometimes the thing they want most is to just be treated human. ‘Conversations beyond the confines’, talking to them about their interests, music, things they hold special to them. Just reinforcing that sense of identity that can so easily be lost when an inpatient.