The award-winning podcast On the Ward has featured on a list of the top 20 mental health listens of last year.

The rundown was released by the website beststartup.co.uk and cited the St Andrew’s Healthcare’s podcast in 15^th place.

Hosted by staff nurse John-Barry Waldron, who has worked at St Andrew’s Healthcare for 17 years, On the Ward challenges some of the myths and taboos around complex mental in the UK today.

The 11 episodes have featured interviews from patients who were happy to talk about their experiences living in a secure psychiatric hospital.

John, who first created the podcast in 2019, said: “It’s always been a dream of mine to make a podcast about mental health and we’ve been thrilled at the success of On the Ward so far.

“It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to speak to these patients and hear their recovery journey; without them we wouldn’t have this podcast so I’d like to thank them for agreeing to take part.

“Complex mental health is a very real part of our society, and yet people find talking about conditions such as borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia really hard. But, that’s how we overcome stigma which is so vital when it comes to accepting our patients into our community.”

John has been busy the last few months putting together the third series of the podcast, which he promises will be the best one yet.

He said: “This series is going to take on a whole new direction which we’re very excited about. Each series we do we learn a lot about how to make the next one even better, so watch this space for the launch date. I can’t wait for all our followers to hear what we have in store.”

To listen to On the Ward, download a podcast app on your smartphone or computer and search for ‘On the Ward’.