Mental Health

Utilising knowledge of best practice and both leading & facilitating a working group, a range of options were developed for managing Personality Disorder within an acute environment for a Merseyside Health Trust

A large mental health trust based in Merseyside was keen to understand how access to crisis beds was facilitated, along with information on where the various models sat within mental health acute pathways.

Supporting Tony Ryan Associates, I undertook an evaluation of the quality and value for money of crisis houses within mental health pathways.  Although it is difficult to suggest this as ‘acute admission prevention’, the project [...]

JMB Health Consultancy were tasked with 4 key objectives:

• To establish the number of services users who have accessed the service since implementation
• Define service outcomes for the Trust, service users, family / carers and commissioners
• Scope future demands
• Recognise opportunities for investment

Significant numbers of people with mental disorder present to the police and for many this is their only route and contact with psychiatric care. The criminal justice system and healthcare professionals therefore have a vital role to play in the assessment and management of such people to ensure that interventions and diversions are both appropriate and timely.

Following a review of services within a North West mental health trust, models of OT had been subject to change. The changes took into account national and local drivers for change and recognised the valuable contribution to service delivery made by its Occupational Therapy staff as described in “Recovering Ordinary Lives, the Strategy for Mental Health Services 2007-2017”

It has recently been identified that Mental Health trusts in England have had their funding cut by more than 2% in real terms over the past two years (BBC, December 2013). JMB Health Consultancy was asked to undertake a review exercise to establish Current additional staffing spend within a large mental health trust in the North West which is currently financed through a zero-budget allocation.

The needs of women have over the years been central to the government’s many programmes of reform through a strategic commitment to addressing discrimination and inequality. Modernising mental health services was one of a core set of national priorities.

In the UK today, one in four adults is living with a mental health problem, most commonly anxiety or depression. Many of these adults are also parents whose children are living at home; in fact, mental health problems are more common in adults who have dependent children than those who do not, with lone parents being three times more likely than other parents to experience mental distress.

Traditionally, mental health and physical health care have both been delivered and commissioned via separate entities. However, the vision of mental health liaison (MHL) was developed as an intervention to lead on and address this, aimed at significantly reducing the incidence of mental illness associated with physical illness and vice versa, thereby reducing the burden in particular upon secondary care services.

As a component of contract schedules, Quality and Innovation Incentives (CQUIN) have encouraged Mental Health Trusts to think more innovatively about how they can improve upon the delivery of holistic services and pathways of care.

In support of the Dementia QIPP and in line with recommendations from the Dementia Strategy, local commissioning from a North West CCG had identified investment for the implementation of ‘Care Navigators’ who would advocate for people with a newly confirmed diagnosis of dementia and their carers and help people to navigate their way through a very difficult and challenging period in their lives.