Mental Health Forum For Cowal

“It is important that the aims of the consultation process are clear and transparent to all those involved.  The partners in any particular activity should understand the reason for their involvement, the scope of the exercise, the issues to be addressed, the decision making process and the subsequent use of outcomes. Social Inclusion Involvement initiatives should be inclusive.
This means taking account of the social and structural barriers which affect people’s ability to participate. These could include issues of physical access, for people with a physical disability, and resources may be needed to enable people who cannot afford transport or child care to take part. Information should be provided in clear and accessible language, in appropriate formats for a range of needs. Procedures should be designed to encourage involvement, and this may mean avoiding formal procedures. Events should be held in local or neutral venues” Read the rest of this entry »

The “Five” service Options which are to be concidered are listed below:-

Service options will be developed under the following headings:

1.Minimal change

2.Localised services, including in-patient beds in community hospitals

3.Flexible, central in-patient facility and enhanced community mental health service

4.Flexible, central in-patient facility (with day treatment and education centre) and enhanced community mental health service

5.No in-patient beds within Argyll and Bute with community focused treatment with access to beds out with the area on an as required basis. Read the rest of this entry »

I would like to direct you to the page:- Local Service Provision this will help “tie in” the last few posts.

I would like to direct you to the page:-
Service “User” involvement
and then I would like to ask the question? have the Service “Users” been adequately helped to participate in the consultation process,
There have been a number of workshops which the service “users” and their carers/families have been invited to:- but have these workshops been accessable to the service “users”
what do I mean by this:-
Advertisement of the “workshops” :- was it adequate
Transport :- was there enough transport laid on so services “Users” and care givers could attend the workshops
Presentation of the “Opinions”:- was the presentations of the opinions and subsequent details easy to understand
Length of the “Workshops”:- was the day too long ?
and if the answer is no to any of the above could a different approch be taken.
for example better advertizement, a workshop in each “Locality”, a different presentation of the “opinions”, shorter “Workshops”. if its the intention for the services “user” to be properly involved he or she must be given the “Tools” to be able to participate fully and these are the questions that have to be asked.

Mental Health Service Redesign in Argyll & Bute
Clinical Service Options

Key Core Service Elements and Planning Assumptions:

The following is a list of the planning assumptions and key service elements. It lists the things that are seen as key issues that are absolute essentials to be addressed within any new service that is developed.

These have been developed from the various workshop discussions and the other aspects of Phase 1 of the redesign process plus the key national policies related to Mental Health including “With Inclusion in Mind” and “Delivering for Mental Health”.

•Services are to be as local to people’s communities as is safe & achievable
•A plan to move towards a 7 day a week community mental health service
•Related to the above some form of crisis response, ideally including home based treatment to both prevent admission and facilitate discharge
•Development of services at the different tiers of Mental Health need, such as promoting health & wellbeing, mild/moderate conditions (primary care) as well as for more severe (community mental health team)
•Development of psychological therapies service, (including both the “talking therapies” and creative therapies)
•All services, but specifically day support, to be focused on promoting independence and promoting integration
•A move away from mental health services being segregated from each other and other generic services. We need to have a service that ensures services are closely linked to promote joined up working, consistent service model and efficient use of resources
•A need to recognise and nurture the value of the generic services in our communities by having stronger links with them
•A need to consider the potential increased usage of the voluntary sector in general and specifically in relation to befriending and buddying schemes
•We require adequate support for both formal and informal carers
•Continuing development of service user involvement in service planning, service evaluation and delivery including discussion as to the potential role of peer support
•Community Mental Health Teams to be integrated with local authority and with a broad range of multi disciplinary membership and exploration of the potential role of peer support models
•A single point of access to the mental health services of both statutory organisations
•Recovery focus to be the basis of all services
•Access to specialist in-patient care when required
•A system and resources for staff training in both statutory training and clinical development
•Services for the Helensburgh and Lochside area must follow the same service model, principles and philosophy. However it is acknowledged that actual service delivery and pathways for in-patient care will be different from the other localities of Argyll & Bute. This is due to the current service level agreement with NHS Glasgow & Clyde and the more urban nature of that community
•Options do not include services specifically for:
o Addictions
o Learning Disability
o Dementia care (both continuing care and assessment)

•To continue to access out of area highly specialised in-patient services within the following groups:

o High and Medium Secure care (Carstairs and Rowanbank)
o Child and Adolescent Mental Health (Gartnavel and Yorkhill Hospitals)
o Perinatal care (Glasgow)

I would like to thank councilor Dick Walsh for allowing extracts of a letter sent to the Cowal Mental Health Forum in responce to a question of Service “user” involement.to be published on this site

Redesign of Mental Health Services

Thank you for your email dated 22nd July 2008 in relation to the current redesign of mental health services in Argyll and Bute.

“As you know NHS Highland and Argyll and Bute Council are working very closely as we progress through the three stages of the redesign process.
We are currently at stage two of the process and a series of events has been organised to look at agreeing a set of options that will be agreed with all interested parties before we reach stage three of the process which involves a three month formal consultation period.

I am sure you will agree the monthly newsletter is user friendly and clearly has the Argyll and Bute Council Logo alongside NHS Highland Logo. This is a very clear statement to the public that this is a joint process involving the Council and NHS Highland.

Council Officers will continue to monitor the success of the newsletter and other ways of publicising the redesign process which also involves working closely with ACUMEN to keep “under review” the impact of service user involvement.

On another matter I am informed you have set up a new Web site on the internet on behalf of the Cowal Mental Health Forum and I would like to congratulate you on driving this forward.

I look forward to the conclusion of the redesign process in due course and your continued support in the reshaping of services within mental health.”

Yours sincerely,

Dick Walsh
Leader.

The Scottish Executive set out specific requirements for NHS Boards to build on existing good practice in public involvement. As such every CHP in Scotland is required to establish a Public Partnership Forum.

The Argyll & Bute PPF is made up of patients, focus groups, community groups, voluntary organisations and individual members of the public. We are also in the process of developing locality PPFs across the CHP.

The PPF is open to anyone within the community regardless of age, gender, ability, faith, ethnicity or sexual orientation. You can join the PPF at whatever level you choose, you may wish to be kept involved, you may wish to have your say or you may wish to be more actively involved through joining meetings or committees with health service staff. The PPF meets on a regular basis and papers from the meetings are publicly available on this website.

If you would like to find out more about the PPF, how to join or be informed of groups in your area or other ways to get involved contact Caroline Champion, Planning & Public Involvement Manager on 01546 605680 or email caroline.champion@nhs.net.

August/September 2008
Options appraisal; which service models work best
September/October 2008
Report for public consultation to be presented to the Community Health
Partnership and Argyll and Bute Council, and then NHS Highland Board
October/November 2008
Public consultation begins see NHS HIghland web site for details

These service options will then go through an options appraisal process to
decide on the preferred options. Users, carers, staff and key stakeholders
will all be involved in the options appraisal. The process looks at the
benefits of each model, the risks in each model of it not working, the costs
and whether it represents good value for money.
The options appraisal process will take place on 12th August and 9th
September. If you would like to be involved, please contact Fiona Broderick
on 01546 604908 or e-mail fiona.broderick@nhs.net
It is planned that in early autumn a full report with preferred options will
be presented to the Community Health Partnership (CHP) and Argyll and
Bute Council, before being presented to NHS Highland Board. Once the
NHS Board have agreed the recommended options, these will go out to
three months public consultation.
Please note the work of building the service models and deciding which are
best has taken longer as we have been mindful of ensuring broad
consultation. Public consultation will begin in October or November 2008.
Dates and venues for public consultation will be published well in advance.
Leadership, management and governance workshops – As well as workshops
looking at service redesign there are also management workshops thinking
through all the apsects of changing the service. The first of these is now
scheduled for mid-September.

The process of redesigning mental health services in Argyll and Bute
is taking place in three phases:
1. Gathering information about current services and thoughts of how
people would like to see services change.
2. Looking in detail at future service needs and how these could be
delivered – developing a number of models of future care
3. Deciding on preferred options and going out to public consultation
on those options.
Phase one is complete During July 2008 there has seen a series of workshops which began to
take some of the ideas and issues raised in phase one and develop
these into more concrete suggestions. These workshops have been
attended by between 25 and 30 people on each day including service
users/carers. They focussed around three themes:
• Primary care and community support services
• Rehabilitation, recovery and specialised community treatment
• Preventing admission, dealing with crisis and supported discharge
The workshops took the format of discussion groups in which basic
principles of a service were discussed and identified. Ideas were then
developed about how a service would be delivered in a new way.
These ideas are now being turned into service options. Service options
are simply descriptions of the way the Mental Health Service could be
delivered in future).