Issue - items at meetings - Re-Commissioning of Local Mental Health Access Services
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Re-Commissioning of Local Mental Health Access Services
Meeting: 09/02/2011 - Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee (discontinued) (Item 55)
Re-Commissioning of Local Mental Health Access Services
Letter to the HOSC Chairman on plans to make changes to the commissioning of local mental health ‘access’ services (copy attached).
Geraldine Hoban, Deputy Director of Commissioning, NHS Brighton & Hove, will be present to answer members’ questions.
Minutes:
55.1 This item was introduced by Geraldine Hoban, Deputy Director of Commissioning; Margaret Cooney, Lead for Change Management, Mental Health Commissioning (both NHS Brighton & Hove); and by Dr Christa Beesley.
55.2 In answer to a question from Neil Holmes on 3rd sector involvement in delivering mental health ‘access’ services, members were told that the commissioners valued the 3rd sector and were committed to working with them. The extended timetable for the re-commissioning of access services provides an opportunity for commissioners to work with the local 3rd sector to ensure that the sector is engaged as constructively as possible in planning and delivering the future configuration of services.
55.3 In response to a question from Cllr Allen on the implications of the re-commissioning plans, Dr Beesley told members that the new system would not necessarily be experimental: significant elements of the plans (including linking community mental health practitioners to GP surgeries) represented a return to tried and tested community mental health structures. The current system was not poor in terms of clinical quality, but there were issues around speed of access and around the ‘medicalisation’ of care.
55.4 In answer to a question on mental health services for people in contact with the criminal justice system, Dr Beesley told members that there were significant problems in terms of the lack of record sharing between forensic services and primary and secondary care. This is likely to pose a problem in the future also given that prison care will be commissioned by the NHS Commissioning Board rather than by local clinicians.
55.5 The Chairman thanked Dr Beesley, Ms Hoban and Ms Cooney for their contributions.