Agenda item

Mark Tyson, Group Manager Integration and Commissioning, LBBD, introduced the report and explained that it provided both an overview of the current situation and tied together the following two agenda items.  There was also widespread national concern about the attention given to mental health services relative to physical health.

Mark advised that the Mental Health Sub- Group had been working to bring together a number of developments around mental health services including prevention, awareness and access to support.  In addition, the Council had initiated a process for reviewing the model of delivery of mental health social care services in part as a response to a significant overspend by NELFT in the delivery of those services.  The Better Care Fund Joint Executive was also seeking to initiate a review of services in regards to its Mental Health Outside Hospital Scheme as a way of informing future commissioning.  In view of this and the challenging financial position of health and social care services, it had become obvious that a clearer strategy across the partners for the development of mental health support was needed.  It was intended that Partners work together during August to address the challenges and on the report and paper attached; which was designed to start the discussion about the areas covered.  Mark drew the Board’s attention to the draft framework, set out on page 28 of the agenda, and the workshops that would be held during August, to look at the issues in more depth through the themes of ‘my life’, ‘my home / community’ and ‘my care’ and possibly commissioning. 

The Board raised a number of issues, including:

·  The £500,000 NELFT overspend and the discussions being held with NELFT on how this could be managed.

·  The difficulties in obtaining accurate data on to the number of individuals being treated and by which services.

·  The difficulties in getting people to come forward for support and treatment.

·  The importance of putting the service user at the centre of all services and how this must be a core driver for the strategy.  The impact on other people within service user’s household also needed to be considered by the Partners.  The Mental Health Sub-Group had service user involvement and these issues would be discussed there in more detail.

·  The Borough currently had some service provision through the Richmond Fellowship contract.  There was still a need for more mother and baby patient places.

·  The number of suicides in the Borough was small so it was hard to detect trends.

·  It was suggested that GP mental health training should be one of the issues considered in the Strategy.  Cllr Keller, Chair of Health and Adult Services Select Committee, advised that the Scrutiny Panel on Mental Health had also identified the training of doctors as an issue.

·  Mental health and physical health, were often intertwined and resultant from one another.

·  A significant number of calls attended by the Police involved mental health issues and officers could attend the same person on a regular basis.  The local custody facilities were now excellent and the Police often took people into custody as a place of safety.  The Police felt that it was important that the right mental health support services were available and provided promptly, especially with less acute needs as this could avoid more severe symptoms developing, which could then lead to individuals needing to be taken to a place of safety. 

·  The timeframe required to produce the Strategy.

The Board:

(i)  Noted the proposed approach to strategy development outlined in the report, which would conclude with the Mental Health Sub-group being tasked with the development of a partnership mental health strategy for consideration by partners and the Board;

(ii)  Encouraged the participation of member organisations and partners in the summer strategy development sessions, and in particular to encourage an open and creative engagement with the challenge of rethinking mental health services in line with the various policy directives set out, and to use this thinking to shape a future partnership mental health strategy;

(iii)  Agreed that whilst it was intended that the results of the work would be presented to the October 2015 meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board, the work should be done thoroughly, rather than to a pre-set timescale; and,

(iv)  Concurred that GP training in Mental Health issues needed to be included in the Strategy.