From engagement to design
After listening to the views of more than 4,000 people regarding what future mental health services should look like in east and west Suffolk, we are now ready to move forward again together.
We have taken on board the feedback received over the last 12 months from our co-production partners, system colleagues, providers, service users, and staff to create our 10-year East and West Suffolk Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing Strategy.
As you will be aware, the strategy focuses on the closer integration of physical and mental health and care services, additional investment in services and workforce support.
The innovative engagement exercise we carried out to inform the strategy has given us a unique insight into the mental health needs of our local population. It is now time to move on to the next phase of #averydifferentconversation and begin the process of designing and implementing the services that will enable us to provide our local population with the right support, at the right time, from the right people, in the right place, and in the right way.
As we proceed, it is important to stress that we remain committed to involving all our partners in this next design stage as we seek to develop in more detail what our mental health services should look like.
This process includes all alliance partners – the NHS Ipswich & East Suffolk and NHS West Suffolk clinical commissioning groups, the Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT), the Suffolk GP Federation (GP Fed) and Suffolk County Council (SCC) – our co-production partners Suffolk Parent Carer Network (SPCN), Suffolk User Forum (SUF) and Suffolk Family Carers (SFC), and our combined workforces.
We have divided this next phase of design work into four priority groups:
- Services for children, young people, and families
- Community mental health services
- 24/7 mental health crisis
- Learning disabilities
Each group is tasked with developing an outline model for service provision by the end of September 2019 and will be supported by a small team from across our alliance partners.
Anybody who would like to take part in the work taking place around these key project areas should email comms@suffolk.nhs.uk using #averydifferentconversation in the subject field.
