From an early age, some people have a really strong sense of what they want to do with their lives. Others spend their whole lives searching for their perfect job while for a lucky few, their perfect job finds them.
When a 24-year old Gordon Moore stepped into St George’s Hospital in Morpeth to visit his Grandmother back in 1975, little did he know that this was going to be the start of a career in mental health services which would span the next 50 years.
In celebration of this milestone anniversary, we chatted to Gordon about his incredible life and career.
Gordon, can you tell us about your early career?
After leaving school, I trained as an electrician – everyone left school and went into a trade in those days. Some friends and I decided that we’d take our skills on the road and we went to work abroad for a few years, working on construction projects and following the hippy trail, we visited Africa, Nepal, India and the Greek Islands.
When I returned in 1975, I was out of work and decided to visit my Grandmother who was an in-patient at St George’s Hospital being treated for Dementia. I had been helping her around the ward as she was unable to walk and as I was leaving, the Charge Nurse came up to me and asked if I would be interested in a job. I asked when would they be looking for someone to start and he replied, tomorrow? And that was the beginning of what is now 50 years in mental health services.
Had you ever considered a career working in mental health before?
Not at all. Up to that point, all I had really wanted to do was chase the sunshine and do what I wanted, when I wanted, but during my journey through India I had developed some strong Christian beliefs and I saw the opportunity at St George’s as a great way to swap my hedonistic lifestyle for something good which would make a positive impact to people’s lives.
Over the course of 50 years, you must have seen quite a lot of changes in mental health services?
When I first started working at St George’s there were 1500 service users, the majority of who lived in the hospital full-time. The hospital operated a range of day services like a gardening department and wood workshop, but everything was set within the hospital grounds, there was nothing in the way of support available out in the wider community. The creation of so many community-based services has definitely been the biggest change I’ve seen through the course of my career. By the year 2000, there were only 200 beds available for in-patients at St George’s, the approach towards mental health care had completely shifted away from long-term hospitalisation. I have always believed that hospitals are for treatment and not places to live in.
So where does Blyth Star fit into your career history?
By 1987, I had worked my way up from a Nursing Assistant, qualifying as both a State Enrolled Nurse and a Registered Mental Nurse and was working as a Charge Nurse at Beulah House Day Hospital in Blyth where I had responsibility for Day Services and some outreach services.
Bus-loads of service users were still being sent up to St George’s hospital daily for treatment and day services, there was still very little in the way of a real community-based provision. With pressure on the health service rising, I was approached by a group of parents and carers of people living with mental health needs about the creation of a community-based service in Blyth which could support them. We managed to pull a team of senior mental health practitioners and a social worker together to join us with the venture and so, Blyth Star Enterprises was born to support the services already on offer from the NHS, but in a community-focused way.
My career through the 1980s and 90s and beyond became a journey in itself which included psychological therapy training in cognitive therapies, management training up to master’s degree level and long-term commitments to the Greek mental health service and Blyth Star Enterprises.
I didn’t actually go to work for Blyth Star full-time until after my retirement from the Northumbria, Tyne and Wear Health Trust in 2008. I had remained heavily involved with the charity and it had grown organically in this time – now based out of our own premises at The Old Chandlery on Blyth’s quayside. We were supporting hundreds of service users through our range of living support and day services, providing a holistic approach to care which focused on improving our service user’s overall quality of life, making sure that they had somewhere to live, somewhere to work and someone to care.
What would you say is your proudest achievement?
Something I’m incredibly proud of is the work that I did in Greece to help reform its mental health services.
In 1990, a documentary called “Cutting Edge: Island of Outcasts” aired on Channel 4 providing a behind the scenes look at the shocking conditions in which people with mental health needs were being forced to live on a small Greek island called Leros. The world was horrified and teams started assembling from all over Europe to help address the crisis. I was chosen as part of the team sent across to Leros by the Northumbria, Tyne and Wear Health Trust to investigate the situation, which for me, was the start of a 25+ year relationship with the Greek mental health authorities.
In this time, I became President of the Asklepios Foundation – a European mental health and disability partnership which helped to lobby for and champion huge changes in the services in Greece, including the closure of five psychiatric hospitals and the establishment of the concept of care in the community. The turnaround was so dramatic in a relatively short space of time, I am really proud to have been a part of it.
Of course, I am equally very proud of Blyth Star and what it has achieved over the years. When we first developed Blyth Star, it was with the intention to create something sustainable which would be around for years to come to support those in need in South East Northumberland. We never had grand ambitions to become a big, national charity, we just wanted to deliver the highest level of service we could on a local scale and stay true to our belief that everyone, no matter what their diagnosis, deserves a great quality of life, and we have definitely achieved this.
Gordon was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2020 for his services to mental health. After stepping down as Chief Executive Officer of Blyth Star Enterprises in 2021, Gordon has remained an active member of the senior management team through his role as Consultant.
