Priory Hospital North London

I am a little disappointed by some of the 1 star ratings. But I know and understand the fact every individual experience is different from than others. Perhaps common expectations of many people is being in mental hospital existence of so called "Magic Pill". It doesn't exist and only miracle can happen only you put effort to get better. Like everything in life, people has to work hard to achieve stable and stress free life. No different in the mental hospital environment. They are encouraging people to make and effort. They can only give us 20% of what we need rest of it has to come with our selves. We do need to work hard to achieve our goal to get better. Obviously some cases needs more time depending on the severity of every individual cases. Daily sessions are way better structured than previous years. Added DBT and Trauma education is very useful. But some of the sessions repetitive and after a while people early losing interest to attend the sessions after a while. Staff is very friendly and I personally can't pick one as favourite. They are always there when it needed but they should not looked at personal butler. Being here is not all about getting help from consultants and therapist. They are well equipped and trained to talk to you if you struggling to cope any time of the day. Yes it is looked at 5 star luxurious hotel but behind the scene well equipped fully functioning hospital. Money cost to stay here always a debate, for that reason expectation is very high. People forget the fact a lot happening and so much money spend on to keep this place running. Only thing perhaps I call as downfall and not aiming directly to the hospital. It is the amount of time given to some of the private health care companies. Given someone 28 days of inpatient/outpatient time is not sufficient enough to get better on some cases. Especially when people starting a new medication and sometime this can take up to 3 weeks to make an improvement. By the time they're can get full benefit of the sessions on 1-2-1's they are force to leave. Seeing so many people leaving and not ready to leave very upsetting. Perhaps this is something should considered between the hospital and the private health firms. Overall this is a hospital does what it says on its title from Director to cleaning staff. They are dedicated to their job and doing it with plenty of human touch. At the end all comes to personal experience and seeking for so called perfection when it comes to reviews. Finally in a way we're all lost out on the bearing sea on a different boat. This hospital is the light house for me to find a safe harbour.. Journey continues...

The DBT programme has no 1:1 therapy in adjunct to it, as recommended by Marsha Linehan, the founder of DBT. This in itself could possibly have been made up for by extra support from the therapists but this was not the case. During the group sessions one therapist had trouble remembering people's names and sometimes the course material. He often looked like he was at the point of falling asleep while you were talking to him. Yet he chastised members of the group if they were even 5 minutes late. After I left the group, the second therapist, Benjamin Terry, who had first admitted me to the course, did not acknowledge my email telling him I was leaving and thanking him for the time I had spent in the group. During my time there he did not respond to emails telling him if I was going to miss a session. He only communicated with me before I was admitted to the group. I feel the two therapists could do more to ensure that members of the group do not feel invisible, irrelevant or invalidated - the very experiences people undertaking DBT are trying to overcome. On a separate point, the bureaucracy at the Priory seems to be confused; there were three secretaries for the consultant I was dealing with and it was difficult getting information. Perhaps this is just a temporary situation because of the chaos of covid-19 and lockdown. Even in a referral letter forwarded to me, vital details, that should have been included, were not, and I had no way of finding them out besides booking another (very costly) consultation. I want to add that the people on the DBT course could not have been nicer. As there was only the group work, we were our own 'teachers', and I was continually impressed by how perceptive, empathetic and emotionally mature my fellow group members were. I wish them all the best and hope they can take away valuable components of Linehan's therapy in spite of the inadequacies of the channel through which it is being dispensed. I have just edited this rating down to 1 star after learning that my health insurance have been trying to contact the relevant psychiatrist (Vikram Watts) for over two months to ask him some questions because his referral letter (which I went though one hour long and one 30 minute consultation in order to achieve) was deeply inadequate (I concur; it was five lines long, if I remember). Yet there is no way to ever contact your psychiatrist at the North London Priory. All correspondence goes into a black hole. You can see that this experience is the very last thing someone trying to get over something like PTSD needs. AVOID this place AT ALL COSTS.

Rude staff that abuse you constantly and dont consider the fact that youre there to get better i just wanted to get out and move to another ward. Nightmare.

As an outpatient for ADD, Dr Rozewicz offered solid care for the majority of my time seeing him. He was aggressive in the ways I needed and flexible in terms of prescribing, something I have had the polar opposite experience of seeing the NHS ADD specialist for my area. Under his care I made tremendous strides positively. However he seemed ignorant of a lot of the strides forward made in the field. I'd done a lot of reading on my own and he wasn't aware of basic things like 'med holidays' or the leading names in the field. He also had to look up medicine I requested more than once which was hugely disconcerting. Until I had a mental health episode and he got spooked. Then he handled me as improperly as it gets, telling me and my family one thing while telling my doctors another. The main complaint is that this place is out in the middle of nowhere. If you're not driving its 150GBP round trip by cab. But as I say, aggressive treatment where the NHS is extremely cautious. All things considered, I wish I could still take treatment with him

Dr Tang was extremely fair and accurate in her comments about my current state of health. She was very open minded about her enquiries into my circumstances and my previous history. At the end of my initial appointment I was given some useful feedback that will help me to improve my personal and professional skills. All the staff at the Priory group were inviting and friendly, treating myself and my chaperone with the highest degree of respect and support. I would recommend this institution to anyone looking to seek fair, impartial and genuine care.