Ruthe Sawyer (a previous NCVS employee) is now working in a system role for the Integrated Care System (ICS) to develop the new three-year mental health strategy and wants to hear from organisations about how they can inform the future of this work and stay updated.
Work began in January 2024 within Nottinghamshire and Nottingham ICS to use an integrated approach to transforming the mental health pathway across inpatient services by developing a three-year mental health strategic plan with system partners. Dictated by a tight deadline from NHS England to have a draft strategy submitted for March 2024, work was set with existing partners to look at the current position, themes, and a system self-assessment to look at the high-level strategy draft. Now that it has been submitted, the ICS is in a position to develop the governance and delivery of the strategy to be accessible to a wider range of partners. As their aims for mental health services within Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are to ensure people have the right care at the right place and time, they are naturally in a position to seek a stronger partnership with our local VCSE sector within this work.
Their priorities have been identified as the following:
- Living Well in the Community (admission avoidance where not appropriate).
- Coproduction: a system-wide infrastructure for mental health services.
- Inpatient services.
- Timely discharge (including housing).
- Workforce and culture.
- System Data.
With their work continuing to look at the details of the strategic plan ready for final submission in June 2024, they are asking VCSE partners more about how they currently provide support for the mental health pathway locally or how their organisation could be developed if support were made available.
With this in mind, they would like to hear from you if your workstreams, projects, or business plan support the following priorities within their strategic plan:
- Offer a service that provides mental health or wellbeing support for adults locally who are struggling with their mental health, including those with Special Education Needs and Disability. And can your support be included within a local mental health pathway that would receive referrals from MH clinicians?
- Have an organisation with the capacity to grow to become a service that can support those who may present in crisis with their mental health.
- Have a service that works to reduce health inequalities for disadvantaged groups in regard to their mental health (race health inequalities, women’s mental health, LGBTQ community, homelessness, etc.)?
- Have an organisation that collects data on the mental health and wellbeing outcomes of people locally.
- Uses coproduction or engagement activities to increase your understanding of mental health and wellbeing.
- Have supported housing opportunities or services.
- Can you work with people who are struggling with mental health, have co-morbidities, or are considered complex cases due to a range of presenting needs?
If you can relate to any of the above points, then The ICS would love to hear from you to learn how you can feed into its strategic plan and keep up-to-date with developments in their strategic plan for mental health over the next three years.
They are also looking to hear from those who wish to be part of their 'living well in the community' subgroup.
Their Living Well in the Community subgroup aims to:
Work to ensure pathways are in place to support access to care and support in the right place at the right time, looking at interventions within the community and therefore reducing demand on inpatient mental health services, as well as improving outcomes for patients with the least restrictive care being accessible and effective. Areas of focus will include (but are not limited to): developing clearer pathways and referral criteria; the establishment of a no-wrong door approach; and developing a personalised care approach to high-quality provision.
To find out more, meet Ruthe, and get involved, please email ruthe.sawyer@nhs.net.
