The Board to receive the Pledge 90 – Mental Health Review report.

Katy Shorten, Strategic Commissioning Manager provided the board with an overview of the findings.  It was reported that –

(a)           the review was completed in partnership with a number of key stakeholders, service users and carers groups.  Caring Plymouth undertook a review of the Pledge in December 2013.  They wanted to avoid duplication and identify the gaps and to reach out to as many people as possible as mental health was everyone’s business;

(b)          the review describes the journey from a health based clinical approach to mental health today being everyone’s business and looking at ensuring that mental health has parity with physical health in mainstreaming our approach;

(c)           the review highlighted that there were a number of strategies in existence or in development.  Crucially what was identified was  strong and motivated stakeholders across providers, commissioners and service users and that stakeholder sector was well engaged with the governance arrangements in place;

(d)          the review refreshed and updated the
Mental Health Needs Assessment and looked at –

·         Risk and protective factors

·         Prevalence data

·         Demand for services

·         Veterans

(e)          the review also built a picture of the currently commissioned mental health services and corresponding spend.  There were a wide spectrum of services commissioned in the city ranging from promotion of mental wellbeing services to acute inpatient services;

(f)            the review covered key performance highlights –

·         Increasing number of people accessing low level services having their needs met

·         A proportion of adults with mental health receiving self-directed support higher than average

·         PCH services which all meet the CQC standards

(g)           the review identified areas for improvement -

·       lower number of mental clients supported through adult social care

·       suicides rates lower

·       Section 136.  Devon and Cornwall Police an outlier nationally

(h)          a report commissioned by Plymouth Involvement and Participation group (PIPs) used a wide range of methods to gather feedback from a cross section of the population and covered the whole of Plymouth geographical.  They looked at current services and provided ideas on how we could work differently moving forward on access to services and how services work together better;

(i)            common themes from the review –

·         Greater focus on early intervention and prevention;

·         Involve services users, carers and stakeholders more;

·         Access to services (waiting times)

·         Person centred care – wider determinance

·         Integration

·         Existing spend

(j)          progress since the review completed –

·         Set up a new mental health carers support group

·         Clearly demonstrating the pledge 90 is feeding into wider commissioning plans

(k)          Pledge 90 was signed off by Cabinet in March 2014 and recommend that the Health and Wellbeing Board to lead on the development of a single implementation plan and work together with the mental health provider network to facilitate an open space event that will form part of solution workshop.  The Joint Commissioning Partnership was looking at the review to form a commissioners’ response.

In response to questions raised, it was reported that -

(l)            Section 136/place of safety was identified as a key area for improvement through the performance review and quite significant amount of work undertaken with new services being developed such as street triage and liaison services and how we ensure more appropriate use of 136.  Plymouth Community Healthcare and the police were working together to address some of the issues;

(m)         the full detail of who was consulted with was contained within the PIPs service user report.  They have a large number of people on their books and went out to community groups to tap into as many people as possible who may not be aware of mental health.  The full needs assessment and in terms of the needs of the silent population we understand that need was not being met, this was a challenge and more difficult in understanding what needs were not being met;

(n)          some of the key players have left the meeting and mental health was an  important issue and as a Board need to consider the information here and make sure we are delivering to our communities;

(o)          this review provides relatively sufficient information to give the Board a sense of the real needs around mental health in our population and recommend that this Board how we consider this and could an implementation plan to be laid over this?;

(p)          the chair thanked Katy Shorten and to all involved with this review.

Agreed that –

1.         The Health and Wellbeing Board commission an Implementation Plan to ensure a consistent and comprehensive response to the findings of Pledge 90, bringing together all strategic plans and activity impacting on mental health and wellbeing.

2.         The Health and Wellbeing Board to monitor the Implementation Plan annually and by exception.