Neighbourhood event explores closer local working to improve mental health support in communities
Community partners from across Northamptonshire have come together to consider and plan how closer neighbourhood working can deliver better and more joined-up mental health support.
The neighbourhood engagement event was hosted by Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) in its role leading the county's Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism (MHLDA) Collaborative. This is a formal partnership of local organisations with collective responsibility for planning, delivering and improving services to provide the best possible support and outcomes for communities.
In attendance at the event were colleagues from NHFT, Mind, general practice, local authorities, police and the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector, alongside people with lived experience of mental health services.
They were organised into 'communities of practice' covering each of Northamptonshire's nine neighbourhoods - similar-sized population areas spanning the county's urban and rural communities.
Attendees were invited to consider in their groups how local communities are connected together and discuss the factors that contribute to people experiencing poor mental health.
An introductory session then explored the current mental health support landscape in Northamptonshire and the pressures faced by services to meet significant demand, as well as the need to provide a more joined-up experience for service users.
Groups were then equipped with population data for their neighbourhoods and challenged to begin conversations around how local services and support structures can be harnessed and developed. This includes making use of new neighbourhood health centres, an initiative that forms part of the government's 10-Year Health Plan for England. The event ended with the groups making a commitment to moving this work forward together as communities of practice.
Adam Smith, Director of Mental Health at NHFT and Senior Responsible Officer for the MHLDA Collaborative, said: "Demand for mental health support has grown massively over recent decades while, at the same time, our local communities have evolved to become connected in very different ways from a couple of generations ago.
"The 10-Year Health Plan for England has a firm focus on supporting healthy communities at neighbourhood level by wrapping services around the needs of the people who live there. Our aim is to bring together the support networks that already exist in these neighbourhoods, develop our services together in partnership and provide better, more joined-up care for our diverse populations.
"This event was all about bringing those partners into the same room, establish the communities of practice which can make this happen and begin action planning to take things forward. It was a really valuable and productive session and I'd like to thank everyone who attended for their commitment to building more mentally healthy communities together."