Dear readers,

PUBLIC APOLOGY

Due to necessity our holiday was interrupted by work related activites and photo opportunities were limited. It is our plan to rectify this situation as soon as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result. Please remember that your readership is important to us.

Today was our first opportunity to meet staff and patients at the local forensic service, Te Whare Manaaki (The House of Healing). We were warmly welcomed by the staff and enjoyed our visit there. It was interesting to note the differences and similarities between this unit and the Orchard Clinic. Meetings with the clinical nurse manager, consumer representative and occupational therapist gave us an insight into how things work in forensic over here and provided a good start to our project. Over lunch our New Zealand colleagues were shocked and impressed that we have an arranged meeting with the Mental Health Comissioner for New Zealand in Wellington. We were shocked and impressed too because we had no idea he was that important! And now we are slightly nervous..!?! So much so we rushed out to buy more shortbread to add to the gift we were planning to give him.

NZ phrase of the day....'good as gold'

Got a few meetings tomorrow with community services will report back in due course. Thank you for your continued support of this blog which we work hard to produce on a daily basis.