Agenda item

Report to follow.

Tim Miller, Joint Assistant Director for Vulnerable Adults and Children for Haringey Council and NHS Haringey CCG, introduced the report for this item, noting that the Cabinet had recently given approval to proceed with this development. The Canning Crescent site was previously built as a mental health community centre and had been occupied by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust. The Council acquired the site in 2019 and now has approval to develop it into a community mental health recovery centre with partners. The development will include a new home for Clarendon Recovery College, the Council’s directly-provided education-based day opportunities service for adult mental health. It will also provide a new Safe Haven (or “crisis café”) which is an out of hours, non-clinical service for people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. The third element is a Recovery House, which is currently run from a Council-run building in Fortis Green and provides six rooms of short-stay accommodation for people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis providing non-clinical support and respite. Moving this service to Canning Crescent would provide an opportunity to expand and redesign the provision. There had originally been an aspiration to provide a supported living scheme on the site but this was not found to be the best option. However, there is a still a commitment to deliver the scheme so alternative sites were being looked at including at the Fortis Green building.

Tim Miller then responded to questions from the Panel.

• Asked for further details about the ‘recovery college’ approach, he said that for a long time service users had been sent to day centres which helped to reduce social isolation but did not always make progress with other issues. The recovery colleges take an educational approach to health and well-being and provide a range of courses focused on mental health which are taught by professionals, family carers and people with lived experience of mental health conditions.
• On how the local community had been involved in the project, he said that people who had previously used the Clarendon had been involved in the design. A group of service users had been working with the Mental Health Trust on the Recovery House redesign project and there had been some focus groups with people at the Recovery College. There had also been some discussion with organisations in the Wood Green area but it has not been in-depth so far as the project had not been approved until very recently. A key principle of the project in that it is embedded in the community and is a resource for the community. It should also be noted that the site was already used as a mental health facility prior to the project being approved. Asked whether he could provide an update in future about how the local community was being involved in the design now that the project had been approved, he confirmed that he would be happy to do so. (ACTION)
• Asked about oversight and service user engagement after the service is operational, he said that the approach goes beyond engagement. The Mental Health Trust are doing particularly well in their peer-support worker employment programmes and their vision for the Recovery House is that it is a peer-led service supported by non-peer professionals and, behind them, supported by experienced clinicians. The Mental Health Trust now have a well-established training and induction programme for their peer support workers.
• Asked about access criteria to the Crisis Café, he said that the design work on this is ongoing. However, the feedback from engagement sessions with professionals and people with lived experience so far had been that the Crisis Café should be open access.
• Asked about the finances for the project, he said that there is a Section 75 partnership agreement between the Council and the CCG that brings together the investment into a single agreement and a single vision.
• On whether this could generate savings for the NHS through innovative improvements, he said that the direction of integrated health and social care is the recognition of the interdependencies between the two and that this is a financial issue as well as a clinical issue.