Agenda item

ADULT MENTAL HEALTH HUB - OXLEAS

To follow

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed Helen Jones – Associate Director, Community Mental Health (Bromley), Oxleas (“Associate Director”) and Ben Taylor – Chief Executive, Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich Mind (“Chief Executive – BLG Mind”) to the meeting to provide an update on the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme.

 

The core offer was for adults in South East London, aged 18+, experiencing mental health problems. This would include people with severe mental illness (SMI) as well as individuals with mild mental health illness who required care and intervention. The aims were to:

-  have a diverse and personalised range of interventions for people experiencing mental health problems within the community setting;

-  enable earlier access to support; to support people to recover and stay well; to prevent mental ill health and crisis intervention; and,

-  reduce inequality in access and experience of mental health and physical health care for people with severe, moderate and mild mental illness across South East London.

 

The underpinning principles were for community services with clear access points that provided flexible care that considered both mind and body (i.e. mental and physical health), with targeted and measurable outcomes to assess and evaluate the benefits for residents in South East London and across the wider health and care economy. These drew on local system knowledge and feedback from service users. Four ‘Bromley principles’ had also been developed:

-  Bridging the gap across primary and secondary care;

-  No wrong door into services and frictionless movement between them;

-  Holistic approach to assessing and meeting needs; and,

-  Integrated, multi-disciplinary team providing clinical and non-clinical support.

 

The Associate Director advised that the Community Hub provided an opportunity to bring services together, with a holistic triage assessment of needs aiming to support reablement and integration into the local community. It was noted that social prescribing support would facilitate access to mainstream resources and activities and MDT meetings would include representatives from IAPT/secondary care to facilitate frictionless movement between services. If required, the Community Hub would also allow reengagement post-discharge to be a straightforward process.

 

Board Members were advised that NHS England Transformation funding for Bromley totalled £872k in 2021/22 – this was a significant investment which would mainly be used for additional staffing roles. The first year of the Community Hub would involve an integrated team of approximately 26 people, including existing Oxleas staff as well as some new roles, and BLG Mind staff. In response to a question from the Chairman, the Associate Director advised that around half of the 26 posts were newly established – for Year 1 the majority were now in post or would be appointed shortly. Work was underway to shape the new service model ready for a soft launch at the end of February 2022. Oxleas and BLG Mind teams would be co-located to carry out joint assessments, shared care planning and interventions, and service user/carer engagement groups had been established to ensure active co-production in the new service. From April 2022 the Community Hub would be operational and recruitment for Year 2  would commence.

 

The intended outcomes of the Community Hub were to:

-  reduced waiting times and ensure individuals received the appropriate support in a timely manner so engagement in services was reduced;

-  increase self-management skills, engagement in community resources and activities;

-  reduced escalation of mental health problems as a result of unaddressed issues such as debt, housing, unemployment and social isolation; and,

-  reduced health inequalities, in particular for people from BAME communities, as a result of tailored support.

 

In response to questions, the Chief Executive – BLG Mind said that a long-term ambition of the Community Hub would be to accept self-referrals, but initially pathways would be used to manage capacity and demand. It was noted that a similar model to the Bromley Community Hub was being used in Greenwich. No specific targets had been set in terms of waiting times, but a similar scheme in Lewisham and seen these reduce significantly, and from April 2022 the national target would be 14-days from referral to intervention. Board Members were advised that staff were already working to build relationships with other department/areas which had the potential to create mental health crisis. It was planned that a housing specialist would be employed in Year 2 as part of the Hub team to connect people with additional support.

 

The Chairman thanked the Associate Director – Community Mental Health (Bromley), Oxleas and Chief Executive – Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich Mind for their presentation to the Board and requested that a further update be provided in a years’ time.

 

RESOLVED that the update be noted.

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