Specialist Mental Health Services
Download (PDF 902.89 KB)Summary of report content
This is a report by Healthwatch Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
Healthwatch Nottingham & Nottinghamshire (HWNN) were commissioned by NHFT to undertake a project that aimed to understand people’s experiences of accessing and using Specialist and Community Mental Health Services in Nottingham & Nottinghamshire. In doing so, HWNN sought to ascertain what challenges people face when accessing mental health services, including
what worked well for them and what can be improved. This project also explored people’s attitudes and behaviours when they, or someone close to them, had mental health concerns. To gain these insights, HWNN carried out a mixed-methods research project, gathering data from previous, existing, and prospective service users via a survey, focus groups, and one-to-one interviews.
We found that, whilst some people had positive experiences of mental health services, others saw the system as being a long way from achieving its aim of ‘no wrong door’.
There are recommendations in this report.
1. Prioritise early intervention with the dual aim of reducing waiting times and providing clear guidance on how long waiting lists are, to ensure that service users are given information on how to ‘wait well’.
2. Examine and improve the way in which patients are identified to receive care from Primary Care Mental Health Practitioners, especially for those with long term mental health needs.
3. Streamline referral processes and ensure that services are accessible to all.
4. Implement centralised, co-produced, ‘person centred care plans’ to support consistency in care and ensure all service users receive holistic, person-centred support.
5. Invest in more services to holistically support service-users, such as those offered by The Recovery College and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations.
6. Ensure that service users are given information about their condition(s), particularly following their first initial formal diagnosis.
7. Review the current crisis provision with the dual aim of improving services and increasing the public’s awareness of crisis services.
8. Ensure that any further service evaluations engage with a sample that is representative of service users and the local population.
There are no follow up actions in the report. However the provider has responded to each recommendation.