Listening to local voices on mental health
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Healthwatch Enfield became aware, through local voluntary community sector organisations and the local people attending events, of concerns that existing mental health support and services were not satisfactorily meeting the needs of local people.
As a result, for over two years Healthwatch Enfield sought the views of more than 220 mental health service users, professionals, and carers on their experiences of the support and services available within the borough. This report reflects the evidence-based findings of that research and identifies key themes that should improve the provision of mental health services across Enfield. These themes and the issues raised within them included:
1. Availability of support: Most powerful concerns raised were people with mental health problems not receiving the level of support they needed, whether support in the community, from GPs to crisis care, to wider access to therapeutic treatments.
2. Seamless integrated care: Poor linkages between inpatient and community mental health care; between GPs and other services; between physical and mental health care; between handovers from one shift and another, and even between different clinicians within the same service, were identified in the report.
3. A person-centred approach: Observation and feedback showed accounts indicating that staff shortages mean service users are not always treated with a person-centred approach that promotes their mental wellbeing. This was particularly true for patients on acute wards. It reports there was concern locally that people with mental health needs from BAME communities and those with a learning disability may not always receive competent support.
4. Communication: HW Enfield found that the quality of information provided by acute wards to patients and carers was inconsistent and, in some cases, very poor, and this was reflected in feedback at engagement events. Some service users said they would like more information when admitted to hospital.
The report also highlights a few examples of good practice, which may help provide a focus around which local people and professionals can engage together. This included actions taken on complaints received, relationships between service users and staff, experimenting new approaches, the ‘Rethink Mental Illness’ welcome pack and other good practices from elsewhere.
The report includes recommendations from HW Enfield which do not only give local people a strategic voice, but can also be utilised to form a base for action planning to enhance provision of mental health services across the borough.