Leicester Partnership Trust will give a presentation on the co-design with service users of local mental health services.
Minutes:
Leicester Partnership Trust gave a presentation on the co-design with service users of local mental health services. Paula Vaughan and Gordon King
During the presentation it was noted that:-
· Following new funding of £815k, there was a for a new piece of work on mental health and wellbeing and to do a piece of work in partnership with primary care networks as key partners. Initially groups within the networks would be asked to do the following 5 things
o Have a real understanding and intelligence and narrative around the mental health needs of their local in neighbourhoods
o Have a quantative assessment impact of Covid on mental health and wellbeing needs in each of the communities
o Have conversations in the neighbourhood about what would make an impact in making lives better for them in the community.
o Formalise the partnerships in the local community in a more formal way to enable those involved in the partnerships such as local voluntary sector, faith and youth groups etc to meet, talk and work together.
o Think about the investment we have given them and what sort of things would they want to put in place locally that would work specifically for their community and we will help them to measure the outcomes in a common format to see what the impact the community assets and investments have been.
· It would be launched in the next week or two. LPT and CCG some management capacity and resources to help with this piece of work.
· Poor mental health services had always tried to be at the heart of understanding how the inequalities and the wider determinants of poor mental health play through around poverty, race, trauma and discrimination. Chronic mental health was also strong driver for poverty. It also carried a lot of baggage around race and dangerousness and we will use that to inform specific work we will be doing around black mental health and the wider BAIME agenda.
· Undertaking a wider public engagement with service users on the wider transformation changes ready for public consultation. There is a legal duty and also a moral duty to do this address stigma etc.
· Targeted engagement to address historical lack of engagement from some groups around patient engagement on mental health.
· At the heart of delivery is daily engagement and co-production.
· It was important to ensure that everything done on a care plan, a care pathway people’s medication plan, work with CPN and other organisation staff was how engagement was delivered in a way that was a genuine partnership to deliver high level mental health care and attain recovery for the patient. Recovery required agency in mental health and people having some hope and some control of what happens. If work was in partnership better outcomes were delivers for people.
· There was a recovery and collaborative care plan and cafe which was a 9-week programme shared space focusing on chine, connectivity, hope, opportunity and identity and meaning.
· Service users and carers were heavily involved in research. The psychologists team at Willows House and Stuart House engaged with service users on research on recovery on mental stress and recruitment panels to make sure we have the right representation of backgrounds of people when we recruit.
· Also doing work on self-assessments tools, central access points, and work around absconsion.
· Outcomes were only meaningful if they were developed by service users as they know how it feels to receive services and they know the outcomes they are looking for.
Board members commented:-
· Working at neighbourhood and community level was welcomed as targeted services were important including cultural specific services which should involve voluntary and community groups in providing them.
· When large contracts were awarded it could prevent small groups that were making local services and a vital contribution from being considered. There was a need to people who needed services a choice, so they could go to different groups to provide what they needed. Small groups should not be excluded by organisations when going the tendering process as this could lead to
Part of the infrastructure being lost and depriving small groups of investment to continue to deliver their valuable services.
· It was desirable to embed genuine wellbeing and resilience within communities. It was also important to not just treat illnesses but to foster positive spirits and resilience. Mental health was not just about the absence of disease but also about positivity and hope.
· LPT had made and excellent way of making material available to people to focus on small habits and actions that foster wellbeing as opposed to dealing with poor mental health during the Covid restrictions. It was not just about addressing the consequences of not being well but using green spaces and access to transport were huge factors in promoting wellbeing to foster positive attitude and resilience in the future for people.
The Chair thanked Paula and Gordon King for this important piece of work. Mental health was equally as important as physical health and needed to have equity of resources and parity of esteem. The changes being made were welcomed and a further update on these to a future meeting would be helpful. Numerous conversations with black ethnic communities all mentioned mental health issues as being important to the them. It would be desirable to have a symposium with members of the black community so that engagement can be taken forward on this issue and to learn lessons as engagement progressed from this piece of work. The Council’s community, leisure and neighbourhood centres could be used help with this initiative.