Agenda item

To note the Southwark joint mental health and wellbeing strategy (2018 – 2021).

Councillor Richard Livingstone, cabinet member for adult care and financial inclusion introduced the report.  He informed the board that the cabinet had made a few corrections/ amendments to the report strategy document.  Amendments set out below:

·  Page 11 of the report document Financial Landscape table (correction) – there was an asterisk missing which needed to be inserted next to the total figure [*£5,539,000] relating to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) – this explained the split of the total mental health spend from the CCG and the council.

·  Under ‘Community-based support for people with complex needs’ The following was added to the end of the last paragraph (page 31 of the report document)  ‘As part of developing our action plan, mental health services will improve partnership working with SASBU (Southwark anti-Social Behaviour Unit) to support communities to be safe and well.’

·  The following was added at the end of first paragraph (page 32 of the report document) ‘The strategy action plan will further focus on activities to support Southwark schools in eliminating any stigma associated with mental health amongst pupils.  This will put in place a framework for managing and supporting young people with mental health conditions at the earliest stage possible recognising the life journey of Southwark residents.

Councillor Livingstone stressed that a lot of hard work had taken place to get to this point.  The strategy set out a very clear way forward in relation to the 5 strategic priorities and areas of action identified. 

Professor Fenton reported that the council and the CCG had worked collaboratively on this strategy. It  was cutting edge in its ability to think about integrating prevention, early intervention and high quality care for individuals dealing with mental health and mental ill health issues but also the antecedent factors which may be driving those issues.  The strategy had been developed through considerable consultation with the community, people with lived experiences as well as providers across Southwark. 

Professor Fenton stressed that there were some major challenges across Southwark, not only with increasing prevalence incidents and burden of mental ill-health within the local population, but also that these burdens were not randomly distributed.  There were sub sectors of the local communities which were disproportionately affected.  Therefore when considering the mental health and wellbeing strategy it was important to think about approaches across the board for all residents, and to be clear about ways in which those disproportionately affected could be targeted.

Professor Fenton also stressed that it was really important to look at organisational competence for the delivery of the strategy and was pleased to see that the strategy was very strong in its governance, that had been and would be established to ensure the implementation of the strategy. 

A number of points were made by the members of the board:

·  How can more be done in the workplace in relation to health, for which a large proportion of local residents work.

·  Work carried out by Healthwatch found that young people want increased support around mental health issues, but from professionals, rather than teachers.

·  Healthwatch interested in being involved with review of the strategy process particularly around crisis care.

·  Secondary schools have fragmentation of wellbeing support available to young people in the borough – need schools commitment of whole systems support to enable young people to get swift access to professional support.  Challenge is to get the funding allocated to secondary schools for emotional health and wellbeing invested in a whole system that supports young people in secondary schools and their families.

·  Most recent version of population segmentation model to be circulated.

RESOLVED:

That the Southwark joint mental health and wellbeing strategy (2018 – 2021) be noted.