Transformation of Community Mental Health Services
In response to the NHS England Long-Term Plan, which tasked health and social care to develop new, more joined-up, ways of delivering care in the community for people with severe mental illnesses, the community transformation will bring local services in Sussex together, including mental health, partners from social care, primary care, local authority, and voluntary community and social enterprise services (VCSE).
The new services will be designed around the needs of the local community and developed in collaboration with the people who will use and work in them.
Patient outcomes and experience will improve; patients will be in charge of their own care and will be offered a personalised package of support based on what they need at that time, which could include for example, psychological therapies, physical health checks, peer support, social activities, or support for employment, housing, or finance. By services working together as one multidisciplinary team, communication and information sharing will progress, duplication of assessments and other processes will be minimised, and the resources available in services will be utilised more effectively.
Staff satisfaction and retention will increase; staff will be empowered to work with more autonomy, will have access to additional resources, a more manageable workload, as well as clear opportunities for training and development.
There will be efficiencies and collaborative working across the system; patients will be treated in the right place at the right time, people will be supported to stay well in their own homes, and pressure and reliance on crisis and acute services will be reduced. Primary care, secondary care, VCSE and social care will come together to provide holistic care.
Community mental health services for adults and older adults with severe mental illness will be transformed; designed around the needs of the local community and developed in collaboration with the people who will use and work in them.
Care will no longer be disconnected between different organisations and services; patients will be treated to meet their care needs as a whole. This joined-up support will help them to recover and improve their overall quality of life.
Patients will be in charge of their own care and will be offered a package of support based on what they need at that time, which could include psychological therapies, loneliness services, or support for employment, housing, or debt.
The offer of what is available will be clear, and support will be easy to access and delivered in a range of welcoming, convenient and therapeutic environments that are as close to home as possible, to ensure everyone has access to the mental health services and support that they need when they need it.
The transformation will also give a renewed focus to people who are living with a range of long-term severe mental illnesses, and will address the current gaps in services for people who are deemed too unwell for support through their GP, but not unwell enough to meet the criteria for specialist mental health services.
Latest news |
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Place based workshops Two workshops took place with invited guests from the local health and care sectors in Crawley and Brighton & Hove. Building on the priorities identified in the system model workshops in August, the groups worked together to agree what the local areas could start to do to transform their local community mental health services. |
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System model workshops People from across the health and care system, including senior leads from across the primary, statutory and VCSE health and care system, people with lived experience and experts by experience of accessing mental health services, and carers, attended workshops at University of Sussex in August, to establish what needs to happen for community mental health services to be transformed, future models, improved ways of working together and local priorities. The workshops were a significant milestone in the programme so far, which initiated a collaboration of people who will use and work in the services. |
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Launch of wave 1 integration sites Wave 1 integration sites will go live in October 2022. This will be the first-time services have worked together in this new way and the first step towards transformed services. The sites will be located in Crawley (West Sussex), High Weald, Lewes and Havens (East Sussex) and Brighton & Hove. The feedback and learnings from the integration sites will be crucial in informing the next steps in the transformation programme. |
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Emotional Wellbeing Services (EWS) Emotional Wellbeing Services are to be expanded to further primary care networks (PCN's) across Sussex. The service provides mental health support in GP surgeries for patients with complex mental health issues who would not usually be able to access Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services, or meet the criteria for referral to specialist mental health services. The number of clinical and non-clinical Mental Health Practitioners in Emotional Wellbeing Services will have doubled by April 2023. |
Coming soon...
The Enhanced Community Rehabilitation Service will provide intensive community treatment and will have the ability to intervene earlier than current Assessment and Treatment Services. For example, they would be able to monitor adherence and work more intensively with housing providers to maintain tenancies.
The Enhanced Community Rehabilitation Service will work closely with community inpatient rehabilitation services to reduce length of stay and improve patient outcomes in the community regarding recovery, and social and occupational functioning.
Offering an alternative pathway to this cohort of complex high-need service users will also reduce demand on Assessment and Treatment Services, allowing them to focus on and be more responsive to other high need service user groups.
The transformation will develop an all-age service for eating disorders, increasing capacity, shortening waiting times for support, and removing the barriers that are currently in place to access services.
Eating disorder services nationally have seen a large increase in demand, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and specialist services in Sussex have been facing unprecedented service pressures. We have been working to improve services and meet this demand, including through:
- Expansion of specialist services to reduce waiting lists (adults and children and young people (CYP))
- Alignment of specialist service provision across Sussex to reduce unwarranted variation (adult)
- Expansion of early help provision via VCSE organisation, Beat (CYP)
To further improve outcomes and experience for people of all ages experiencing eating difficulties and disorders, health and care organisations are working together to look at the current care pathway (the whole system offer for each stage of support from prevention/early identification through to specialist and more intensive care) and thinking together about what we would want this to look like in Sussex. This has highlighted gaps and opportunities for more joined up, integrated working and for developing a seamless pathway of care with a focus on early intervention.
We are now moving into implementation of the new pathway within available resources, and we will be working with people, professionals and organisations across Sussex to make that happen.
Please check back for further updates.
The community transformation will give a renewed focus to people living with a range of long-term severe mental illnesses, including complex emotional needs associated with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
Want to get involved in the community transformation, share your views and ideas, and be part of this exciting transformation?
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter: click here
Workshops, webinars and events
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Date |
Time |
Event / workshop / webinar |
Location |
Sign up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 21 June 2023 | 12-12.45pm | Monthly webinar - topic: Learning from other areas to help us achieve transformation | Virtual | Click here |
| Wednesday 19 July 2023 | 12-12.45pm | Monthly webinar - topic: Latest progress: developing a clinical model | Virtual | Click here |
| Wednesday 16 August 2023 | 12-12.45pm | Monthly webinar - topic: TBC | Virtual | Click here |
Co-production
Within the transformation programme there are co-production leads, who help bring people together and support them to be able to contribute and make a difference to mental health care services. There is also the SCALE Network, which stands for Sussex Coproduction And Lived/Living Experience.
Get in touch to find out more about how you can get involved.
Natasha Barefield (East Sussex and Brighton & Hove): natasha
VCSE Mental Health Networks
If you are a voluntary, community or social enterprise organisation working in mental health, you may be interested in joining the network for your area, to help influence and shape the future provision of community mental health.
West Sussex: vcsementalhealthnetwork
Brighton & Hove / East Sussex: andrea.potter@
There have been lots of developments and activity happening across Sussex. See the full list below:
| When? | What? | Details |
|---|---|---|
| May 2023 | Crawley community mental health transformation workshop |
An in-person workshop which built on the previous event in October 2022, to continue to discuss the community transformation programme in Crawley, West Sussex. The event was attended by people with lived experience, family and friend carers, health and social care staff, and VCSE representatives. The workshop had a focus on coproducing plans for the development of community hubs. |
| May 2023 | Monthly newsletter | The May edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| May 2023 | Monthly webinar |
Emma Logie, Lead for VCSE Mental Health Transformation Team (West Sussex), and Martin Dominy, Head of VCSE Mental Health Transformation Team (East Sussex and Brighton & Hove), speak about the role of the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) in the community mental health transformation programme. |
| April 2023 | Monthly webinar |
Dr Bree Macdonald and Dr Brian Solts discuss the work that has been so far and is ongoing to develop a specialist pathway for adults with complex emotional needs (CEN). |
| April 2023 | Monthly newsletter | The April edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| April 2023 | Brighton & Hove quarterly webinar | The first Brighton & Hove community mental health transformation quarterly webinar, which provided an update on progress made in the city so far, and next steps. |
| March 2023 | Monthly newsletter | The March edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| March 2023 | Partnership Matters article | The community rehabilitation hubs that have been developed as part of the community mental health transformation programme featured in Sussex Partnership's magazine, Partnership Matters. Read the full article on page 5 here. |
| March 2023 | 'Changing the Language' workshops | Two workshops were held as part of the Changing the Language project. |
| March 2023 | Monthly webinar |
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| February 2023 | Monthly newsletter |
The February edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| February 2023 | 'Changing the Language' focus groups | Two focus groups were held as part of the Changing the Language project. |
| February 2023 | Monthly webinar |
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| January 2023 | Monthly newsletter | The January edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| January 2023 | Monthly webinar |
Rachel Coffey, Programme Director, provides an update on what has happened in the programme so far and the next steps for 2023. |
| December 2022 | Monthly newsletter | The December edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
| December 2022 | Monthly webinar |
Jenny Edge, General Manager for Emotional Wellbeing Service (EWS), and Anne Foster, Head of Mental Health Commissioning, provide an update on the development of the EWS and the next steps |
| November 2022 | Monthly newsletter | The November edition of the community mental health transformation newsletter - download |
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November 2022 |
Monthly webinar |
Rachel Coffey, Programme Director, and Penny Fenton, Community Pathway Lead, provide a background about the transformation of community mental health services for adults and older adults in Sussex |
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November 2022 |
Place based workshops |
Virtual and in-person workshops took place in East Sussex, with invited guests from the local health and care sectors. Building on the priorities identified in the system model workshops in August, the groups worked together to agree what the local area could start to do to transform their local community mental health services. |
| October 2022 | Place based workshops |
Two workshops took place with invited guests from the local health and care sectors in Crawley and Brighton & Hove. Building on the priorities identified in the system model workshops in August, the groups worked together to agree what the local areas could start to do to transform their local community mental health services. |
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September 2022 |
Partnership Matters article |
The community transformation was featured in Sussex Partnership's magazine, Partnership Matters. Read the full article on page 22 here. |
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August 2022 |
System model workshops |
People from across the health and care system, including senior leads from across the primary, statutory and VCSE health and care system, people with lived experience and experts by experience of accessing mental health services, and carers, attended workshops at University of Sussex in August, to establish what needs to happen for community mental health services to be transformed, future models, improved ways of working together and local priorities. The workshops were a significant milestone in the programme so far, which initiated a collaboration of people who will use and work in the services. |
If you have any questions or comments about the community transformation, or want to get involved, please email communitytransformation
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