The Portman Clinic is an NHS outpatient clinic for people who consider themselves to be troubled by, or to be suffering through, their own violent or criminal behaviour, or, through sexual impulses which compel them to act in a way which may cause distress or harm to self or others. The Portman Clinic is the only clinic of its kind in the UK that specialises in such treatment to these groups of patients.
Referrals are accepted from anywhere in the United Kingdom.
Referrals may be made by any professionals such as Psychiatrists, GPs, nurses and other health professionals, or by social workers, probation officers and professionals from the voluntary sector. Referrals may be made by the patients themselves although we would normally require details of the GP in order to arrange NHS funding. While the suitability of a referral can be discussed in a telephone enquiry, a written referral is required, addressed to the Clinical Co-ordinator.
The Clinic offers a highly specialised long term psychotherapy service to adults as well as to adolescents and children.
Following a careful assessment, the patient may be offered individual or group psychotherapy as appropriate; on some occasions couple or family psychotherapy may be offered.
Our services are available to people regardless of race, culture, sexual orientation, class, gender, age, religion or ability. Staff at the clinic recognise and are sensitive to the fact that certain groups and individuals, and many of our patients in particular, have experienced and continue to experience discrimination of all kinds.
Assessments are comprehensive and intended to be helpful in their own right and can consist of up to six appointments, over a varying period of time. Subsequent treatment recommendations, where appropriate, will be discussed with the patient and the referrer informed of the outcome. Sometimes an assessment only may be offered in order to offer assistance to a professional in looking after a patient.
It is our aim that first appointments for assessments are offered within 13 weeks of date of referral.
The patient is seen on his/her own. Appointments are usually offered once-weekly, although appointments may sometimes be offered on a less or more frequent basis depending on need but also the availability of treatment vacancies. Where the referred patient is a child, it is expected that some work may also take place with family members. The active support of the referrer, particularly in the case of a child in treatment is often essential to the viability of treatment.
Patients are seen in carefully selected, usually heterogeneous, groups. Sessions are weekly and it is recommended that patients are able to commit themselves to a minimum of two years.
Couples or families may be seen for exploratory meetings either leading on to regular treatment sessions or in many cases individual members being offered individual or group treatment when this is indicated.
The clinic provides court reports for both civil and criminal courts. Referrals for these largely emanate from the legal profession or Children's Guardians or in matters of the future welfare of a child, from the social services department.
The Trust has a well developed CPA policy in line with NHS guidelines. The majority of our patients are at the standard level of CPA, which requires that all appropriate clinical procedures have been completed and are recorded in the case notes. For those patients who are more disturbed and need to be in the enhanced Care Programme, we require appropriate arrangements to be made with local psychiatric services.
The Portman Clinic provides treatment for a group of patients for whom treatment is not normally provided by generic services. Work with these patients requires specialist training and at the Portman Clinic treatment is provided by senior staff at consultant level, both medical and non-medical.
Because the psychotherapy carried out by the clinic is highly specialised, the main expertise of the staff group derives from their experience and training in this area. To this specialised work the staff team aditionally bring their own core training as social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers and nurses as well as their specialist training in adult and child psychoanalytical psychotherapy.
Everyone working in the NHS has a legal duty to maintain patients' confidentiality and at the Portman Clinic we attach particular importance to this responsibility. On rare occasions and in exceptional situations there may be an overriding reason to share information with others either to protect a patient or another person. In this event the matter would first be discussed with the patient.
To make a referral please write to:
Mr Carlos Fishman, Consultant Adult Psychotherapist, Portman Clinic.
Please note, referrals by email are not accepted by The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. No patient identifiable information must ever be transmitted or accepted until such time as proper encryption procedures are in place. Referrals are only accepted in writing and are treated confidentially by the specific department or clinic to which they are addressed.
For information about the Portman Clinic, its services and activities please contact:
Clinic Manager
Portman Clinic
8 Fitzjohns Avenue
London NW3 5NA
Tel: 020 7794 8262
Fax: 020 7447 3748
Email jvogler@tavi-port.nhs.uk
