This was the second visit of the day - Reading in the morning and Oxford in the afternoon. The road between the two was about an hour's struggle through all the pretty Thames-side villages with synchronised speed cameras, and the train was 25 minutes non-stop. A no-brainer, as they say. The only snag was the rather intimidating car park at Reading station where you have to purchase an unusual-looking token without which it is presumably impossible to escape (see Tuesday - 'controlled access'), by car at least (see earlier today - lots of lovely places to go by train).
But after that slight anxiety, the first thing we noticed was what an easy journey it was - ticket to platform to train to helpful refreshments trolley person - to taxi - to Oxford Complex Needs Service. Even time for a breath of fresh air before we went in, which we did exactly at the appointed time. The refreshments trolley person on the train was particularly impressive - after missing her whizzing past first time round, she said not to worry as she'd be back. When we were ten minutes away from Oxford station we had given up, and resigned ourselves to a couple more biscuits and a hungry afternoon - but no! Nine minutes before arrival, she was there again, all smiles and selling us a quite tasty looking sandwich and bean salad. Bean salads are a bit difficult to eat with your fingers, but thank goodness for M&S foodstores on station concourses - free forks!
Negotiating the door entry buzzer and rampant cheese plant foliage in the entrance was quite easy (I remember a colleague used to say that the best way to instantly assess the overall health of a psychiatric unit was to look at the plants), and we were offered coffee, and everything else we might need. The building was NHS, but free of most of the signs of over-institutionalisation - and we had the first hour in an office and the second hour in a large comfy room with several sofas. I often think the presence of sofas says something important about the prevailing attitude in a workplace - but it's hard to say exactly what it is, except that when I recently heard of the exact opposite (meetings without any seats at all - to keep everybody sharp and focussed, and maybe awake), it seemed obvious where it would be nicer to work.
Oxford seems to be one of those places where odd coincidences happen - maybe some ley-lines cross there. When we were walking out for our debrief, one of us in the visiting team met a long-time colleague and friend who lives in Surrey and was on his way to work in Hereford via a synchronous visit to an adjacent building in this colourful and lively part of Oxford. Such weird coincidences must mean something...
For our debriefing, one of us was keen to introduce the others to the delights of the 'Excelsior Cafe' over the road - which is possibly the most authentic 1950s 'greasy spoon' experience available in England today. Sadly the staff at the unit got wind of this and started to describe it in most unfair terms, such as 'an inch layer of grease on top of your tea' - and the visitors chose a much more respectable coffee bar close by. But by now it was after 6pm, and at least they served beer!
The request for a photo was a bit more complicated than usual, as three different groups of service users who had never met each other came together - with two of them from far-flung corners of Oxfordshire. So each of the three groups has been invited to send us a photo of their own TC, showing what they would like to convey about it, with a few notes. They will be put here as soon as they arrive...
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