Welcome to Beth

What is Beth?

Beth is a secure platform powered by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (the trust) that promotes supported self-management and opportunities to improve communication between service users, carers and clinicians.

It is currently in development, more features and improvements will be added in the coming months.

 

Who is Beth for?

Anyone can sign up to  Beth to explore wellbeing tips and recovery stories and create goals and coping strategies. If you need help or support using Beth, please email beth@slam.nhs.uk

 

If you are a service user at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, you can choose to connect your Beth account with your health record and care team. This will enable you to send and receive messages with your care team, share tracking, goals and coping strategies with them. Watch a YouTube video that shows you how to use each feature.

 

If you are a close family member, friend or carer of a service user at the trust, you can connect with their care team and let the team know how the person you support is doing.

 

If you are staff at the trust, you can access Beth via the icon in the top panel in ePJS. You can send and receive messages with service users and their carers and view updates that your caseload has chosen to share with you. As staff, if you need help or support using Beth, please contact the trust service desk. Watch a YouTube video that shows you how to use each feature.

Beth is powered by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, if you are interested in using Beth in your trust or organisation, contact: DigitalServices@slam.nhs.uk

 

Why Beth?

Beth aims to demonstrate how personalised health records (PHRs) could enhance NHS service delivery and support people to stay well.

 

How does it work / what next?

Beth is built using agile development processes which enable iteration through user-centred build, test and learn cycles.

Beth integrates with the trust's clinical record system (ePJS).

The platform is being built open source and in a modular way that allows for future integrations, features and partnerships. Development of Beth so far has been funded by Maudsley Charity.

Beth will continue to grow and develop. If you are interested in using Beth in your trust or organisation or have ideas for how to add to the platform, contact: DigitalServices@slam.nhs.uk

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Wellbeing Tips

Small improvements in our wellbeing can help to decrease some mental health problems and also help us to get more out of life.

These 5 ways to wellbeing are proven to improve personal wellbeing. Read the full document.

keeplearning

keeplearning

#KeepLearning Learning can boost self-confidence and self-esteem, help build a sense of purpose, and help us connect with others. Research shows that learning throughout life is associated with greater satisfaction and optimism, and improved ability to get the most from life.

What might you want to learn more about?

SLEEP TIPS - For more information and tips on sleep

Visit the Sleep Foundation - https://www.sleepfoundation.org/

#tips #keeplearning

givetoothers

givetoothers

#GiveToOthers Doing even little things for others can give us a sense of purpose and self-worth. It can make us feel happier and more satisfied with life. Being kind to others can stimulate the reward areas in our brain, creating positive feelings. Even doing something small for someone else can give us a buzz.

How might you do something kind for someone today?

Offer someone a compliment.

But keep it short and sweet, people can feel embarrassed by over-the-top compliments.

#tips #givetoothers

takenotice

takenotice

#TakeNotice Being in the moment, including just being aware of our thoughts, feelings, body and the world around us, can help us appreciate the little things, understand ourselves more and get the most out of being alive.

When in your day can you stop to notice what’s happening with you and around you?

Where possible try to remove distractions from your bedroom.

It is better to watch TV, play computer games and eat in another room. This will allow you to relax with no distractions in your bedroom.

#tips #takenotice

I don’t have a disordered personality, but a loving one

When I was diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder/ borderline personality disorder earlier on this year there was a strange sense of relief. I finally knew what was going on with me. I knew that depression didn’t explain some of my symptoms. I had too much going on for that to be true. The symptoms include can include eating problems, impulsiveness, self-harm, mild psychosis, and hectic unstable relationships. All of these I experience at least 3 times a week.

However, the strongest of them all is intrusive thoughts and mood swings. These happen several times a day. These intrusive thoughts can range from, “you’re ugly”, “you should kill yourself”, “punch that person”, or my favourite “you’ve got a broken personality, you should just kill yourself”, these thoughts like to cover all bases. The worst of these however, are not the ones about myself, they are the ones that are about others or what others are thinking.

Thoughts like “he hates you”, “you acted so stupid, she probably thinks you’re an idiot”, “why did you say that? you probably upset her”. These ones lead me to have horrific anxiety and this just adds to my likelihood of mood swings. Moving onto the mood swings, these can happen every hour or half an hour. They happen regularly and are intense.

One thing about BPD is that the emotions we feel are extremely intense, if I’m happy then I am “bouncing off the wall” happy, if I’m angry I’m “punch a wall and scream” angry, sad then it’s “lets jump off a bridge”. There is no balance, it’s all extreme, weirdly enough though most of these feelings always result into the same thing and that is suicidal feelings.

These mood swings can often lead to a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder. The difference is bipolar mood swings seem to take place over periods of months, whereas BPD mood swings change rapidly within hours and don’t just consist of mania and depression.

Now anyone reading this probably thinks with these intrusive thoughts that I’m a danger, but even though I have the thought to punch that person I’m not going to, or even if I have that thought to shout at someone I’m not going to. Chances are I’m not going to hurt anyone else, just myself. I have too much guilt to hurt another.

There are different types of “borderlines” and I’d be described as “quiet borderline” due to the way I act inwards rather than outwards. I have impulsive actions to hurt myself and to do self-destructive things. I have never been sectioned and I’m grateful for that but I completely understand how it can happen to others.

There’s a positive to having such intense emotions, and that’s because if I am doing something I’m passionate about I’ll give it my all. When I do volunteering or my job working with young people, I put all my heart into it. I get a high that is just incredible and feel absolutely on top of the world. Us borderlines are amazing. We love strong, feel intensely, and live on another level. I do not have a disordered personality, I have a loving one.

By Abbie

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