Agenda item

A system presentation on Community Mental Health Transformation and the Mental Wellbeing & Resilience Fund – Emily van de Venter and Richard Onyon

The Board received a combined presentation from Eleanor Cappell of Coventry and Warwickshire CCG and Paula Mawson of Warwickshire County Council.

The presentation focussed initially on the Community Mental Health Transformation, with slides covering:

• Substantial funding being made available to transform and modernise Community Mental Health Services
• The aim was to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) ambitions for new models of integrated primary and community care
• A new community-based offer
• The new model was being co-produced and developed to underpin a bid for transformational funding
• The consultation undertaken since November 2020 with a range of stakeholders
• Building on transformation across local pathways
• Graphics showing the design principles and vision for the future
• The additional funding for investment into local community mental health
• Key focus of the proposals, including the core offer and focussed pathways
• The co-production strategy, working with the organisations Grapevine and Rethink
• The project plan for the first four months
• Other work areas
• Governance structure,
• Evaluation arrangements
• Looking forward to the future and a statement from a lived experience representative, Claire Handy.

The second strand to the presentation focussed on the Warwickshire Covid-19 mental wellbeing & resilience fund, with slides covering:

• Improving mental wellbeing in Warwickshire
• Funding – the overall total value of the fund of £750,000 was open to applications for projects which required investment under three thresholds
• Intended outcomes and benefits
• Promotion activity resulting in 134 expressions of interest and 67 applications being submitted
• The wellbeing for life vision and aims
• A summary of activity to date
• Warwickshire creative health programmes

Board members submitted the following questions and observations with responses provided as indicated:

• Councillor Humphreys praised this initiative, speaking of the benefit in tailoring services to meet the needs of clients. She asked about entry to the service. This could be via general practice with mental health practitioner support, via CWPT or via the mental health access hub.
• Information was sought about waiting lists and it was hoped this additional funding would meet service demand. Through a locality pathway approach, waiting lists to secondary mental health care had been reduced. Integration of data flows was seen as a key aspect. A need for transparency as waiting lists would vary for different therapies.
• Councillor Gutteridge sought data on the liaison worker activity for the Nuneaton and Bedworth area. It was agreed to provide tailored information.
• Councillor Roodhouse commented on the vision, the reliance on partnership working and the need to involve elected members at all levels. He saw a role for members as local champions. The document referenced eating disorders. People may have a number of complex issues, which shouldn’t be pigeonholed. He referred to co-production and expressing this in a diagram should show many links. Eleanor Cappell welcomed the suggestion of members being local champions. The pathway approach sought to take a holistic view of each patient and their families’ needs.
• Councillor Matecki, sought a view about Covid vaccination being compulsory for key workers. He then spoke of the need to listen to residents, using a recent example of distress caused to a family which was receiving fake messages, but agencies would not believe them. CWPT was promoting uptake of the Covid vaccination to staff and patients. Listening to service users was important, which was the thrust of the statement from a lived experience representative, Claire Handy.
• Sir Chris Ham asked a question on staffing. Given the pressures on mental health services and partners, he asked whether services would be able to recruit. Eleanor Cappell acknowledged this was the biggest risk, adding that there were robust recruitment and retention strategies in place, good career progression aims and consideration of wider support options for service delivery.
• Nigel Minns welcomed the involvement of service users and the voluntary and community service sector (VCS), with positive feedback from this sector for the initiative. He welcomed the additional funding, but staffing continued to be an issue. He asked if anything more was needed from the local system in terms of staffing support. Eleanor Cappell thought this may be helpful in terms of the Section 75 funding arrangements between health and social care and social care support, whilst acknowledging the workforce challenges faced by all. She also spoke about recruitment strategy and marketing in a joined-up way.
• Dame Stella Manzie expressed her support for the place level approach and tailored services. She spoke of managing issues for those who may need to transition to or from acute care and the challenges for the acute sector. Eleanor Cappell referred to the NHS long-term plan, aims to ease pressure on inpatient beds and reduce   deterioration of patients. There were innovative community-based alternatives and working methods.

• The Chair noted that mental health was a priority. She asked for an update to be provided on mental health at each board meeting and requested a joint presentation to give an overarching view of how the commissioning units worked together. A lot of funding was available, and it needed to be used to transform the services. She requested that further information and action plans be provided about system changes and processes to meet the service demand. The Chair asked that a similar presentation be provided to the health overview and scrutiny committee, so that its feedback could be submitted to the board.
• Chris Bain of Healthwatch Warwickshire spoke of the need to evaluate initiatives and their impact on the wellbeing and health of people, rather than a focus just on delivery of the NHS long-term plan objectives.
• Councillor Humphries asked if existing community groups could be considered for programmes such as that for dementia arts. Support was expressed for this idea.

Resolved

That the Health and Wellbeing Board notes the presentation.