1.Welcome and Introductions
Jodie Cook welcomed everyone to the forum meeting and introduced herself as the Mental Health Policy Officer for the Derbyshire Mental Health Forum (DMHF).
Derbyshire Mental Health Forum Meeting predominately represents the southern regions or Derbyshire as well as Derby City. However, the Forum, and Jodie’s role, does often spread countywide.
Rachel Bounds at the DVA’s Mental Health Liaison service represents the northern regions of Derbyshire and we come together for a Joint Countywide Forum meeting twice a year – the next Joint meeting will be Tuesday 27th September.
2. Update on Mental Health Developments
Jennifer Stothard - Assistant Director, Assistant Director of Adult Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism
Commissioning Living Well (aka Community Mental Health Framework) Roll Out
It’s been rolled out to High Peak and Derby City and now continuing the roll out to Chesterfield and North East. If anyone is interested in being involved or wants to know more please get in touch.
More information can be found on the website here.
Integrating the 111 NHS Service with the Mental Health Helpline
Derbyshire operate a Mental Health Helpline (more info here) that people can call direct and a project is underway for direct connections to be made to this from the NHS 111 service.
This is hoping to be online by March next year with discussions taking place in the Autumn.
Safe Havens
Looking to expand access to the Safe Haven in Derby City so that people can get direct access. More will be shared on this once the process has been agreed.
Capital for New Building Works
National funding is being secured to build new acute mental health care units in the north and south of the county to eradicate dormitory style bedrooms.
In Chesterfield there will be a new Acute Mental Health hospital on the Chesterfield Royal site comprising of 54 beds and a mixture of male and female wards – with ensuite rooms. They are also designed to be autism friendly and low stimulus environment. There is also a proposal to relocate a functional older adult unit from Hartington Unit to Walton Hospital to co-locate with the dementia wards.
In Derby, on the Kingsway Site – two new buildings of 54 beds for male admissions will be built and we are planning to also include a psychiatric intensive care unit and a high dependency unit to support females.
On the Derby Royal site, the plan is to refurbish the Radbourne facility, which will be for females.
Estimated cost is £120m of which £80m has been secured so far from national funding with discussions ongoing for the additional £40m.
Commissioners are taking on board comments from organisations / providers / services to get as much input as possible on the design, build and service provided by these new buildings and facilities.
Capital for Urgent Care Response
There has also been additional capital money been made available to improve the county’s urgent care response. The money will be spread over three years.
As it is capital funding it can only be used for things like buildings, refurbishments and infrastructure – it can’t be used for ongoing running costs like staffing.
The CCG/ICB are looking for input on how this funding can be used best across the county and Derby City. It doesn’t have to be spent on one thing it can be spread on a number of different projects. It just needs to clearly evidence how it will improve urgent care response.
The deadline for input was 1st July with Jennifer is hoping to put together a strong case to receive the money and then have more detailed conversations and input from the mental health sector on how it is spent.
Mental Health Vehicles
There is potential for funding of Mental Health vehicles which can be run by EMAS or an alternative. Jennifer is happy to receive input on what we want in terms of that vehicle response.
Alliance Event
As some of you may already know, an alliance is being created for to bring together services for Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Autism and Children and Young People’s mental health.
A partnership agreement has been drafted for the different partners to agree to. Setting the principles and ways we want to work along with a roadmap in terms of what we would like to achieve. This will be shared with members of the Forum.
To launch the alliance, there is going to be a festival style event on currently being planned for 22nd September. A venue is still to be confirmed and further information will be sent out as soon as possible.
We hope the event will encourage discussions and get people talking about what’s working and what’s not. With the aim of breaking down “organisational egos” for better, more effective working relationships.
Jennifer is invited people and organisations to get in touch if they want to be a part of the event.
2. Mental Health Crisis Alternative Provision (Crisis Cafes)
Claire Thornber and Naomi Martin - Crisis Alternative Development Workers
Claire and Naomi gave us an excellent update on the crisis alternatives being developed across Derby City and Derbyshire.
Background – They explained how the more comprehensive crisis care pathways fits in to the NHSs long term plan and how voluntary services will play a central role in this provision. Two crisis alternatives are already available – A 24hr Telephone Helpline and a Safe Haven. Crisis Cafes will be the third service to be developed and what Naomi and Claire are focused on developing.
Crisis Cafes - will be a warm and welcoming space in the evenings and at weekends for anyone who feels they are approaching a mental health crisis to access face to face support. They will be ‘open access’ and be staffed by trained mental health workers with access to NHS Clinicians.
There is a budget of £182,000 for 2 years and priorities areas for the location have now been identified. (See presentation).
It is expected that Requests for Quotes will be open at the end of August with a minimum of 3 weeks to submit. They are then hoping the service will be launched by January / February next year.
If you would like to know more or share your input please don’t hesitate to contact:
Claire Thornber - claire@erewashcvs.org.uk or 07821 656206
Naomi Martin - naomi@erewashcvs.org.uk or 0115 9466740
3. Mental Health Motorbike
Paul Oxborough, Founding Member of Mental Health Motorbike
This meeting we shone the spotlight on Mental Health Motorbike with founder, Paul Oxborough, giving a brilliant presentation on the organisation.
After a close friend took his own life, Mental Health Motorbike was established with the aim of growing the wellbeing of the motorbike community and ultimately reduce suicide amongst bikers. To achieve this, they are building a network of trained Mental Health First Aiders across the UK who can support bikers.
They offer three types of support:
One to one support
Peer Support
Events and Activities
The charity has grown tremendously in a short space of time and now have 28 volunteer staff, 150 qualified mental health first aiders, 35 ambassadors and 18 online moderators.
To find out more:
Website - mhmotorbike.com
Facebook - www.facebook.com/mhmotorbike
Email - info@mhmotorbike.com
Check out their YouTube video - https://youtu.be/O77VKnWJI-0
4. Autism Community of Practice
Elena Gibbons, Services Manager, Citizens Advice Mid Mercia
In our final presentation, Elena introduced the Autism Community of Practice. This is a group that has been established to:
Better understand the current service for autistic people
Identify any gaps in delivery
Share best practise
Offer mutual support
Help develop autism services within Derby and Derbyshire
Membership is open to all organisations and individuals who have knowledge or interest in the development and improvement of Autism Services in Derbyshire and Derby City. Meetings are held once a month.
The commissioners share work packages with the group to look at developing and delivering services. The current work package is for Autism Post-Diagnostic Support – more details are on the presentation.
For more information on the Autism Community of Practice and the Autism Post-Diagnostic Support work package feel free to contact Elena at egibbons@citizensadvicemidmercia.org.uk.
6. Feedback and Updates from Derbyshire Mental Health Forum
Jodie Cook, Mental Health Policy Officer, Derbyshire Mental Health Forum
Face-to-face meetings
We discussed having a face-to-face forums again, and moving away from video calls a little bit. We feel this would be a better opportunity for networking, potentially more engaging and add more variety to the forum meetings. This received a positive response from attendees, and we understand that travel and location will be limiting factors for some.
The idea is to still have virtual meetings but complemented by face-to-face meeting maybe once or twice a year. It is also likely we could do a face-to-face event as part of a Joint Forum with Derbyshire Voluntary Action.
An idea was suggested that a face-to-face meeting could be used an opportunity to bring resources, leaflets and information to share about mental health services and charities available in Derby and Derbyshire. In addition to this, Michelle Butler suggested that organisations could offer to host the meetings as a way of showcasing their services and adding more insight and variety to meetings.
Voluntary Sector Reps - Online Forum/Portal
Following a recent discussion with the voluntary sector reps we discussed finding a better solution to communicate information, decisions and opportunities from the meetings and projects they are part of. This would not only better communication between one another but, just as importantly, to the wider Derbyshire mental health sector and forum members.
The solution discussed was an online platform (by via Microsoft Teams or another format) where people can post information instantly without waiting for reports or it to come out on Forum News. Initial thoughts are that it could be used as a notice board for the mental health sector with different spaces for different conditions / services / projects.
The project would be run in conjunction with Derbyshire Voluntary Action and is only at the ideas stage at the moment. The next stage is to conduct some research and testing to see what it would look like and what resourcing would be required.
Wynne Garnett mentioned that NHS Futures is an online community for the different integrated care systems to have their own space with different workspaces below that for different services of that system. Derbyshire Integrate Care have put themselves forward to be an earlier adopter of the new system. Likely to available this year so worth keeping an eye on. Michelle Butler suggested looking at Facebook or LinkedIn groups as another option to consider.
Please get in touch with freddie@erewashcvs.org.uk if you have any ideas or feedback for an online forum and how you may like it to look.
Derby Mental Health Community Groups Network
For those of you that come to the Community Groups Network we are looking at re=-modelling it so it is specifically for small groups with unpaid staff. It is felt that there is a gap in the community sector for small groups to connect, share ideas and support one another.
Those of you that are on that mailing list should be getting an email shortly about the changes (if you haven’t already received it).
Deaf Mental Health Day
EVA’s Derbyshire Mental Health Forum and Communication Unlimited hosted a Deaf Mental Health Day event on 4th July to raise awareness of the gaps in mental health services for the deaf community and to start taking actions to improve things.
More information about the event can be found in our Forum News article
7. Partner Updates
Wynne Garnett (Programme Lead - VCSE Sector in the Integrated Care System)
New VCSE Strategic Engagement Manager for MH, LD and Autism will be starting on 18th July. Will be working closely with Jodie and Rachel and his focus will be on looking at the processes that involve the VCSE sector such as funding, planning and commissioning.
Wynne is also involved in a review of social prescribing and how this can be improved and challenges overcome.
8. Next Meetings
The next forum meeting will be a Joint Countywide Forum Meeting with Derbyshire Voluntary Action. This will be on Tuesday 27th September at 1.00pm.
The next Derbyshire Mental Health Forum meeting will be 9th November at 1.30pm and will be a virtual meeting.
A big thank you to our speakers, everyone who attended the meeting, and to those who gave their apologies if they couldn’t make it - we look forward to seeing you at the next Forum Meeting.
A list of attendance is available on request