Want help? Then let me film inside psychiatric wards

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Nearly two years ago, a high-profile strategy was launched to reduce the stigma of mental illness. The ‘see me’ campaign is funded by the Scottish Executive health department and backed by five mental health charities.

We, the media, have been put under the microscope. Journalists, including me, received flyers warning us that we were being watched. We were told labels like ‘psycho’, ‘nutter’ and ‘weirdo’ were no longer acceptable. Quite right.

But now I would like to extend this initiative - with a very Scottish slogan. I would like to suggest the launch of a ‘see you’ campaign.

I want to be able to present mental illness in the same way as any other illness of the body, and I want the NHS to stop making it extraordinarily difficult for me to do so.

Let me give you a typical example. Earlier this year I was putting together a story about anti-depressants. The Scottish Association for Mental Health found two excellent interviewees for me.

Both were engaging, articulate and witty - exactly the kind of people who illustrate that mental illness can affect anyone.

We arranged to meet at the psychiatric hospital which treated them.

When I arrived with my camera crew, we were shown into the office of one of the interviewees, who now works on the patient council. As an office it was fine, but for the viewer it was rather uninteresting.

So I asked if we could film somewhere else in the hospital. The hospital manager said ‘no’. I asked if we could go outside into the pleasant gardens. We were told we were absolutely forbidden to film anywhere except for that dull, cramped office. The reason we were given was ‘patient confidentiality’.

This is a get-out clause often used by managers who fail to see the bigger picture.

Patient confidentiality means we can’t film people in hospital without their permission. The solution is quite simple - we ask them.

If it’s inappropriate to identify patients, we can film in a way that they can’t be recognised, and if it’s really not an option, then we can film areas of the hospital where there aren’t any patients.

As a health correspondent, I’ve been doing this for three years in other hospitals without complaint.

What could possibly have been the harm in filming an interview in the flower-filled grounds of the hospital that day?

Our interviewees told us that the only person we were likely to encounter would be a local walking their dog - probably a good image to send out to all those communities who are resisting much needed medium-secure units because they’re worried about safety.

The reason I find this particularly frustrating is because I used to work in a medium-secure unit and I know they can be pleasant, cheerful places and not at all what the public probably expects.

Broadcasting pictures of them on TV, as we do with other wards, would probably remove some of the stigma of being admitted.

It would also help me to cover stories on mental health issues, which receive far less attention than, say, cancer or heart disease.

I now find myself in the ridiculous situation of having more pictures of Victorian mental institutions in the BBC library than of modern psychiatric units.

More recently I have been filming a young boy who has Asperger’s syndrome. His mum was nervous about the filming because he was in the process of changing schools and she didn’t want him marked out by a news story. She asked him what he thought and he told her he wanted to take part.

“Mum”, he said, “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
‘see me?’ - as a journalist I’m happy to be scrutinised. ‘see you?’ - open up, if you have nothing to be ashamed of.

Scottish Association for Mental Health

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