Questions & Answers Regarding This Event

What is this event about?

Across England, community mental health services for people with serious mental illness (SMI) are starting an exciting and complex programme of change between 2022 and 2024.

Within Sheffield, we are starting to look at how we can improve your experience of care, support and treatment in relation to SMI. This is not only looking at the medical aspects of mental health but it is also looking at how your wider support needs can be improved; for example, your physical health or accessing voluntary sector organisations.

What is serious mental illness (SMI)?

Serious mental illness is a category used to describe a number of more complex mental health conditions. Examples of the types of conditions that fall into the SMI category are: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, major depressive disorder and characteristics of borderline personality disorder.

What are we aiming to achieve?

We want to improve mental health care, support and treatment to remove the barriers and join up provision that many people currently experience. For example:

- Repeated assessments

- Being referred to different parts of the mental health system

- Physical health needs not being viewed alongside mental health needs

- Removing the gap in service offer that exists where some people are classed as being too complex for IAPT yet not complex enough for the community mental health teams

- Better involvement between NHS services and the voluntary sector.

- Bringing your care, support and treatment closer to where you live and your local communities.

How will care, support and treatment be provided closer to home?

For a number of people going to different and unfamiliar venues can be difficult including having to plan public transport journeys and more. We are aiming for everyone to have the option to receive support closer to their home within the new transformed models of mental health care, support and treatment. This may be within a local GP practice or within a voluntary sector building or similar. It is an important part of the transformation that mental health services are seen as part of the local community offer and have strong connections with local communities to truly understand what is important locally and deliver what is most effective for you, your family and/or carers.

What existing services are part of this work?

From September 2022, we are working to integrate the following community mental health services:

- Single Point of Access (SPA)

- Emotional Wellbeing Service (EWS)

- Short term Educational Programme (STEP)

- Primary Community Mental Health team (PCMHT)

We also want to develop better links to local communities and local voluntary community and social enterprises (VCSEs) who provide a really important role supporting social and wellbeing needs.

Why are some community mental health services NOT part of this work?

The Transformation Programme is very complicated and part of a national rollout. Here in Sheffield, it includes multiple teams (over 120 staff) from Sheffield Health & Social Care; Primary Care Sheffield; 78 GP practices; a wealth of citywide VCSE organisations, and our service users.

We are intentionally starting off by working on one part of the local mental health system. There is ongoing work looking at how the Recovery North and South Teams undertake a similar process. We will be ensuring the work we undertake links into the work being undertaken in the Recovery Teams.

Once we start to mobilise the changes in this part of the Transformation, we will start to look at any other services to include in the next phase of Transformation.

What can you influence?

We want to hear your views and experiences on any part of serious mental illness care, support or treatment. We can only influence the services that are directly provided by the NHS and the potential links to improved VCSE/voluntary sector working.

The national Transformation programme is targeted at serious mental illness so we can only make changes to these services. For example, this is not about Improved Access to Therapy (IAPT) services or about GP practices. However, if there are things we can do to improve wider work in these areas we are happy to share this feedback to others.

Primary Community Mental Health Transformation Phase 3 Clinical Model