Agenda item

Report ECHS19022

The Board considered an update from Nazmin Mansuria, Senior Commissioning Manager: Integrated Commissioning and Transformation, Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group on the recent bid to a Trailblazer programme which had been successful in securing funding to establish new Mental Health Support Teams to provide an early intervention and prevention service for children and young people with mild to moderate mental health issues.  Funding had also been secured to trial a four week waiting time to access specialist NHS Mental Health Services for children and young people.

In December 2017, the Government published a green paper on ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’ which set out a commitment to expand support for children and young people’s mental health services through three key proposals which comprised incentivising and supporting all schools to identify and train a Designated Senior Lead for mental health, to fund new Mental Health Support Teams and to trial a four week waiting time for access to specialist NHS Mental Health Services for children and young people.  Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group and its partners had submitted a successful bid for £2.1M of Trailblazer pilot funding for 2019-21.  This funding would be used to establish two Mental Health Support Teams that would provide an early intervention and prevention service for children and young people with mild to moderate mental health issues for half the school population in Bromley.  There would be a strong emphasis on bringing all schools together to enable learning to be shared across the Borough and learning events would be held throughout the course of the pilot scheme.  There would be a redesign of existing care pathways into Specialist Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Bromley to meet a four week waiting time target from referral to initial assessment.  This would build on wider system-based transformation work that was already underway including improvements to care pathway interfaces and joint working practices with key partners such as the Bromley Wellbeing Service.

The Senior Commissioning Manager: Integrated Commissioning and Transformation, Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group advised that preparation was underway to launch the pilot schemes as soon as the Trailblazer pilot funding was released, and that governance structures and delivery teams were already in place. 

The Chairman commended the work of Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group and its partners in successfully securing Trailblazer pilot funding that would enable the development of innovative and sustainable mental health services across the Borough, and contribute towards the national approach to providing child and adolescent mental health support. 

In response to a question from a Board Member, the Senior Commissioning Manager: Integrated Commissioning and Transformation confirmed that the early intervention and prevention service for children and young people with mild to moderate mental health issues would be developed in partnership with schools and service users to provide mental health support in an holistic way.  Around 40-50 Bromley schools would participate in the pilot scheme via two clusters of approximately 20 schools.  The establishment of peer support and parenting groups would give children and young people as well as their wider families the tools to develop resilience, and a Board Member noted that work to deliver four week waiting time target from referral to initial assessment would reduce family pressures associated with lengthy waiting times. 

RESOLVED that the update be noted.