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Mental health care pathway consultation (closed)

What this care pathway means for you

Select a section below to learn about how our new proposed care pathway may affect you. 

Service users / people with lived experience of specialist mental health care and support

We know that moving between services can be difficult: your needs change, but the service you receive might not be flexibly enough to be helpful at the time you need it. Perhaps you have felt stuck in a service over-providing for you and you want to increase your independence. This could be after a hospital placement, specialist residential care, or a form of Supported Living.

We know that you might not want to tell your story more than once (unless your needs change), and that support needs to be responsive enough to empower you and prevent things from escalating.This care pathway will mean that you have someone responsible for continually assessing your needs, who understands about how these translate into Care Act eligibility, and the variety of services available.

This single point of contact will proactively respond when your needs change, so that the service you receive is directly in line with the support you need. Whether that means you need more or less support, the partnership will help. It will be easier to move around services, or transfer out of them, as needed, with comprehensive handovers of care, so you can best achieve your goals, and move towards greater independence.

Unpaid carers, family and friends

We know that moving between services can be difficult for the person you care for, and stressful for you. Sometimes that person's needs may have changed, but the service they receive doesn’t seem to respond flexibly to reflect that. Perhaps they have felt stuck in a service over-providing for them, and they want to increase their independence. This might be after a hospital placement, specialist residential care, or a form of Supported Living. We know that you may have experienced not knowing who to contact for support, either in times of crisis, or for ongoing needs.

This pathway will mean that someone in the partnership will be responsible for continually assessing the Care Act eligible needs of the person you care for. This point of contact will also react promptly when those needs change, so that the services your friend or family member receives are directly in line with the support they need. Whether that means getting more or less support, the partnership will help. It will be easier for the person you care for to move around the services, and to transfer out of services, as needed. Comprehensive handovers of care will also help to reduce the stress and anxiety of change, so the person you care for can best achieve their goals, and move towards more independent living. You will always know who to contact, and the partnership will be able to react more flexibly to offer the right support at the right time.

Support workers

This care pathway aims to address common challenges for people who are working with clients to provide the support they need:

  • It makes the purpose of the service clearer
  • It focuses on empowering your clients to develop resilience and coping skills
  • It gives you a clear route of action, if you identify when a client's needs have changed, but feel unable to, or unsure how to, support them to transition to a new service
  • It gives you the handover support to feel fully-prepared when someone new is referred to your service

This pathway will mean that someone in your organisation will be responsible for continually assessing the needs of the people you support. They will receive a full handover from the referring organisation in the partnership. You will be supported to ensure that the person’s needs are properly met and they continue to grow in confidence towards greater independence.

Mental health professionals (including care co-ordinators, social workers and nurses)

It can be time-consuming and difficult to source the right care for clients with mental ill health, once you have determined their eligible needs.

This pathway will mean you have one point of contact to refer to for your client. Through this, they'll be able to access a range of community support options, including both accommodation-based and non-accommodation based Supported Living, and specialist residential care.

As the partners are able to grow their offer, based on predicted demand, issues around capacity should reduce, and you should have greater clarity as to the key contact responsible for your client’s care. 

Other interested parties

We anticipate that a number of other parties will have an interest in the development of this care pathway model, mainly those who are involved in community health and welfare, and the delivery of services to support these. 

For people interested in community wellbeing and policy

We think this care pathway can provide the following benefits, and would particularly welcome your comments and insights into these areas:

  • Improved, seamless, care and support, with service users able to move from one type of service to another with ease, retaining continuity of support
  • Improved client choice, closer to home, through utilising all in-area capacity and by identifying and growing the services we need
  • A whole-system approach will improve outcomes and client / carer / family experiences, through thinking about what the whole of the system needs and thinking holistically about people’s lives

For the care and support providers in the partnership

We think this care pathway can provide the following benefits, and would particularly welcome your comments and insights into these areas:

  • A positive, trusting and transparent strategic relationship with the Council and CCG, where we identify issues and design solutions together
  • Greater financial stability, through agreed and understood analysis of current and future demand, and a guaranteed volume of work
  • Flexibility to work collaboratively with each other, as no single provider holds the entire pathway of services

For council and CCG service commissioners and managers

We think this care pathway can provide the following benefits, and would particularly welcome your comments and insights into these areas:

  • Improved service delivery and wellbeing outcomes for people in B&NES
  • Ensuring tax payers’ funds are being used in the most effective manner
  • Good supplier relationship management 
  • Robust, agreed and fit-for-purpose contractual arrangements, with built-in monitoring and criteria for evidence of impact