Agenda item

To receive a presentation on Mental Health support in Haringey.

Mental Health Workshop slides have been included as an appendix.

Mr Tim Miller, Mr Temmy Fasegha, Mr Will Maimaris, Mr Gary Passaway, Ms Rachel Lissauer and Ms Lynette Charles presented the item.  

The Board welcomed the presentation. The meeting heard that:

·      There was a broad agreement on priorities and support for emphasis on prevention, early intervention and focus on tackling inequalities.

·      Alignment of resources was a key area of concern and opportunity for Haringey. The right balance between centralised and place based service and resources was considered to be important. 

·      It was important to be honest about what it would mean to an individual being put on a waiting list, including the length of time that would be spent waiting.

·      The discussion of arts and culture was not present in the presentation and needed further integration, especially as the Council had placed resources to acquire arts and culture facilities. It would help form therapeutic approaches into depression and isolation. A reading group, a drama group or other form of creative art provided people with shared cultural expression.

·      Singing and art improved people’s mental health.

·      Inpatient wards had therapeutic programmes and this helped with recovery in general.

·      There were other aspects of people's lives preventing people from having shorter stays and this included people’s working life.

·      Different sectors needed to have a method so that they could connect together.

·      The strategy needed to include assets, this could be the peer led approaches being taken. In the scenario of a serious mental illness, it would be useful to have a first point of contact and finding out how one would be encouraged to engage other available services.

·      The use of art and culture was helpful to minority communities.  Black Thrive had many learning points and an opportunity should be made to present work done by Black Thrive at the Board. 

·      For NHS talking therapy services, people did receive access for treatment but had to wait significantly longer for their second treatment. Workforce retention and recruitment remained a challenge across the NHS. If people did not get access to services on time, they would drop out of treatment and their ill health became more acute. Transparency about waiting times needed to be provided so that people could weigh up options and pursue other options whilst waiting.

·      It was important to consider how services could be offered to residents who were not on record or were isolated. There were mentally ill people that could be found on the street and those individuals did not know how to get into contact with the services that could help with their needs.

·      It was important for the wider community to have a shared understanding of mental health. It was also important for the wider community to be able to understand access to mental health care provision both for themselves and others.

·      The relationship between mental health and physical health needed further emphasis.

·      Reporting a distressed individual in the street needed to tie in with the review of the Council’s safeguarding policy. The Joint Partnership Board, including mental health service users, had said they wanted community engagement in safeguarding to be a high priority in the five-year review that was taking place. In particular, concerns were expressed about those that had observably ill mental health. Work needed to be done with the Safeguarding Adults Board regarding attaining a wider community understanding of mental health services.

·      Physical documents, such as leaflets, would be useful to help educate the community and allow people to have something to refer to when they needed a reference point.

·      The transition between child and adult mental health needed to be addressed.

·      An event could be held at the Health and Wellbeing workshop regarding Housing including with Registered Social Landlords. Visitations could also be useful.

·      It would be useful to maximise how to support people when they were awaiting treatment especially for a secondary care type of service. This included contacting people on the waiting list. 

·      An update would be provided to a future Health and Wellbeing Board.

RESOLVED:

That the presentation be noted.