Agenda item

In line with the Your Care, Your Way full business case, the Mental Health Pathway is currently being reviewed by commissioners. This report provides an update on that review with particular focus on key themes which have emerged during the engagement phase.

The Community Services Programme Lead introduced the report on behalf of the Senior Commissioning Manager for Mental Health who was unable to attend. She informed the Select Committee that a review of the mental health pathway is being undertaken by the Council and Clinical Commissioning Group in order to determine the best model for the future commissioning of community and statutory mental health services across health and social care.

She explained that the review aims to identify how people access services, the quality of the services received, how they leave services and ongoing support. She added that it will seek to identify how services link together and in particular how physical and mental health services work together.

She said that the review will also identify areas of best practices within B&NES, what is working well, where there are gaps, duplication, potential for sharing resources and areas for improvement.

She gave the Select Committee some examples of the comments made during the initial engagement interviews.

·  The voluntary sector in BANES is excellent – but statutory services need to support them and service users and carers to use and further develop them.

·  Peer working, peer mentoring, volunteering and befriending are important elements of the recovery process and require further development.

·  Transitions between CAMHs and adult mental health services sometimes do not work well.

·  Dual diagnosis (substance misuse and mental health) service users can fall between gaps - too risky for IAPT but not severe enough for other services.

She stated that it is anticipated that an initial assessment of options will be considered by the Council / CCG Joint Commissioning Committee in October 2017, and that this will be followed by a more detailed options appraisal to be presented in November / December 2017 with the aim of implementing from April 2018.

Councillor Bryan Organ asked if the matter of transitions had improved recently.

The Community Services Programme Lead replied that there had been some improvement. She said that through the review 15 CAMHS users had been interviewed. She added that the question remains as to whether Children’s Services should extend to 25 years of age or for what period there should be an overlap. She stated that this issue was high up on the list to be resolved.

Councillor Lin Patterson commented that she was pleased to see this issue receiving the appropriate attention.

Councillor Eleanor Jackson raised the matter of being able to access services and that this may be different for members of the public who are based more rurally to those within the city. She added that she had seen information that reported that 1 in 4 girls suffer from some form of depression.

The Community Services Programme Lead that the engagement with young people throughout this process was key. She added that in particular officers were keen assess their aspirations and talk of how they access services. She said that as parto the review that Bath Area Play Project and Off The Record have held focus groups.

Councillor Tim Ball said that he had concerns that some service users who had been assessed as being on the Autism spectrum were having problems receiving medication after turning 18 years of age.

The Community Services Programme Lead replied that she would take that point away and discuss further with colleagues.

The Select Committee RESOLVED to note the themes emerging from the review.