Plans to restructure Brent Community Mental Health services are on the already crowded for tonight's Cabinet. The current budget is £5.4m and the proposals account for £350k of the £500k reduction tabled for 2015-16. The model is the outcome of partnership wotk between Brent Council, Central and NW London NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Brent CCG.
The Report LINK gives the views of users and staff:
USERS
The Report LINK gives the views of users and staff:
USERS
· The service needs to be genuinely
holistic, taking into account all health and community support needs.
· The service needs to be
person-centred, with the service user setting their own goals.
· Better information should be
available at the point of referral about what services are available, and how
they are accessed.
· Assessment and Brief Treatment needs
to be improved – assessments aren’t timely enough and brief treatment is not
always provided.
· Community services for those who are
not in acute crisis need to be improved so that support doesn’t drop away when
an individual’s mental health starts to improve.
· The service needs to be better
linked with the third sector in order to address broader needs.
· There needs to be clear information
for service users on what they should do if they go into crisis and they need
emergency support.
STAFF
· There should be fewer handoffs
between teams and service users should move less between teams.
· There should be clarity around third
sector services in Brent and how service users can access them.
· The single front door, with senior
people carrying out the first assessment, should be more effective than it
currently is where services find they are “playing catch up” with the core
assessment – eliminate the need for more than one assessment.
· Bureaucracy should be reduced in the
new model
· The advantages and disadvantages of
generic care coordinators should be considered – new skills have been learned,
even if social care assessments aren’t as good.
· The continuity of care should be
improved.
· Staff may feel unsettled if they
don’t like the new structure – Brent already has
recruitment and retention issues
· The service should have sufficient
capacity to manage demand
· Links to other services, such as
Housing, need to improve
· Effective discharge planning with
service users is essential.
· The implementation plan has to be
well thought through. The impact on service
users has to be considered as
services are reorganised and staff moved around.
· Ensure specialist functions aren’t
lost in the reorganisation.
· Interfaces shouldn’t be replicated
elsewhere, such as between Primary Care Plus
and the secondary service
The report recognises that a change of culture is required in the proposed new model:
