WIREDGOV

Health Innovation North West Coast has collaborated with system partners to develop recommendations aimed at improving mental health support for young adults.

The report focuses on the transition from Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) and the growing gap between demand and capacity.

It points out that only around a quarter of young adults move onto adult services and many are discharged to their GP who can find it difficult to support patients without input from specialist services.

Young people and families have told us it can also be challenging to navigate support that’s available in their communities and understand what services are available to meet their needs.

The Health Innovation North West Coast team worked with clinicians, young people, the voluntary sector and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside to identify five priorities for change.

The recommendations, which have been co-designed with a wide range of system partners and stakeholders, are:

• Employ more young people to ensure mental health services are more responsive to needs
• Empower young people to contribute to the development and delivery of training
• Promote services more effectively to make it clear what support is available
• Develop a transition policy that focuses not on age-based but needs-based services
• Develop a neighbourhood approach to provide holistic, person-centred care.

The team delivered a series of multi-stakeholder workshops in the past year that focused on gathering insight into current service provision, with particular emphasis on the transition from CAMHS to adult services.

The team is now working with NHS Cheshire and Merseyside to develop a service model and an approach to implementation, and explore how the recommendations can be mobilised in practice.

Rachel Smethurst, Mental Health Programme Manager at Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, yesterday said:

“The 16-25 age group is a focus area for us and we want to ensure that young people know where to access help, that support is available locally, and that services are accessible in a way that meets their needs.

“Having young people co-produce the recommendations from the very beginning of this piece of work through to where we are now has been incredibly important and integral to the transformation we want to achieve.

“The Health Innovation North West Coast team have helped us bring together the right people and have led the workshops with real energy and skill, ensuring that a wide range of voices and experiences have contributed to the discussion and helped shape these recommendations.”

The focus in the coming year will be to explore opportunities to support a pilot phase, enabling partners to begin testing, refining and embedding in the recommendations in practice.

NHS England figures show that young people with a mental health condition were three times more likely to be unable to afford to take part in activities such as sport or socialising.

They were also four times more likely to fall behind with bills and three times more likely to be unable to afford food or need to use a food bank.

Alice Fletcher, Programme Manager at Health Innovation North West Coast, yesterday said:

“This transition period for young people is an extremely important time and we’re delighted we’ve been able to propose improvements.

“We believe we’ve brought the right people together to truly reflect the depth of expertise in our area and we’re looking forward to seeing the proposals implemented.”

Read the report here.