NHS 75 - “You only come into this job because you care"

Working in the NHS long term was never something Kevin Crabb had planned to do.

Kevin, who is celebrating his 30th year in the NHS, said: “I got made redundant from a van-driving job. My dad was a qualified mental health nurse at Runwell Hospital and one of his colleagues worked at a local nursing home and offered me a job down there working at the home.

“It was just going to be temporary. Then I was asked if I would be interested in a job at Runwell Hospital. I was only looking at it as a short term role.”

Since then, Kevin’s career has seen him work in numerous mental health wards and rehabilitation units run by EPUT and its predecessor organisations.

He is currently a senior support worker and safeguarding lead in the Poplar Adolescent Unit, one of our mental health inpatient wards for young people.

He has been there for eight years and is passionate about ensuring the teenagers in the unit’s care receive the support they need so they recover and do not need to be admitted again in future.

“No child should be going through mental health issues. It’s about caring for them and trying to nurture them, and helping get them back to their everyday life,” said Kevin, who is a father himself.

“I have seen youngsters who I saw before Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services existed about 16 years ago and we are still seeing them as adults on the adult mental health wards now.

“It’s always been my belief I don’t want that happening to kids. We want to get them into our services and help them so they do not need to come back again.

“One patient that sticks in my mind is a young person who didn’t trust men at all. So I made it my job to ensure she could see not all men were bad. It took a long while but we got there in the end.

“When she was discharged from the ward, she gave me a hug in front of her mum and her mum burst into tears because she had never that before with any man.

“She has gone on to help other young people who were in the same situation as she was.”

During his long service in the NHS, Kevin said the use of restraint techniques and restrictive practices in mental health wards “has improved no end” and this is much better for patients.

Speaking about Poplar ward, he said: “We try to make it as homely as possible. We don’t like to be too restrictive and we treat everyone as an individual.

“When they come through that door, we want them to realise adults are not always the bad guys and we do care.

“You only come into this job because you care, so we try to make it as caring an environment as possible.”