Investing in mental health care

By Norma Beavers
NHS Rotherham has launched a consultation programme to gather opinion on how best to improve mental health services in the region. A series of "Ask us / Have Your Say" sessions are underway until 24 November

Working with its partners—Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council— the PCT plans to invest up to £2.5m in updating mental health care. The goal is to expand community health services for adults of working age and older adults.  The promise is for more mental health services delivered closer to the patient’s home. But for those being treated as inpatients the proposals include a modernisation agenda to replace and improve buildings used for in-patient services.

 

Andy Buck, chief executive, NHS Rotherham and coauthors of the consultation document note the problems of the existing buildings need to be overcome if progress is to be made. “Many of our buildings locally are out of date for the provision of high quality specialist mental health care and were not originally designed to deliver mental health services. They do not always allow people to be treated with the level of respect and dignity they deserve. They do not allow for fully satisfactory single sex accommodation. There is a lack of easy access to high quality outdoor space. Many of the wards and bedrooms are overlooked from other buildings. The proximity of roads and car parks makes the buildings noisy.” All of this is likely to change if plans for a new unit on the Rotherham General Hospital site and refurbishment and extension of Swallownest Court to accommodate a psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) get the go-ahead.

 

The proposals are in line with national policies for mental healthcare. According to the consultation document, “Our commitment to develop high quality mental health services in the community is supported by the NHS Yorkshire and the Humber ‘Healthy Ambitions’ (May 2008) document, which recommends ‘investment in community mental health services to ensure capacity meets demand’. As set out in NHS Next Stage Review Final Report ‘High Quality Care For All’, we aim to give people greater control of their health and wellbeing, offering more choice of care available in the community and ensuring health and social care givers work together effectively.”

 

Ambitions include:

·            to increase the number of people who are assessed within primary care settings such as GP surgeries and to make it easier for people to access mental health specialists

·            to increase the proportion of people who receive treatment at home

·            to Reduce admissions to hospital and ensure people are discharged as soon as they are well enough to go home

·            to improve the quality of the inpatient services environment for patients with complex and severe conditions who require an admission

·            to provide exercise facilities for inpatients

·            to better integrate day, community and inpatient services that are more flexible, easier to access and more responsive to individual circumstances

·            to enable community mental health teams to provide care to more people.

 

The consultation is due to end 9 December.