Project Description
JMB Health Consultancy was delighted to engage with a North West Mental Health Trust to help them understand existing provision comparable with ongoing and future demands, particularly in relation to dementia provision.
This whole system evaluation sought to understand the value for money outcomes and impacts of changes in models of care in relation to dementia and utilised a variety of project methodologies through engagement with stakeholders and data analysis.
The overall analysis highlighted how 78% of existing practice was actually on non-essential tasks, with a large proportion of functions being provided at a financial risk to the trust through ‘non-commissioned’ service provisions.
It was concluded that the community workers were often adopting a socially driven model which ultimately is not the core business of specialist and costly secondary mental health service providers. This thereby called into question the quantitative and hence overall value for money of that particular service.
Our recommendations lay within the need to clarify commissioning and task priorities, which has resulted in staff dispersals across the trust primarily to meet the change in service direction, new models of care, and ultimately adopt a more universal role approach such as facilitating discharges from acute care into the community.