#AVeryDifferentConversation - NHS West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey!

Watch this video full-size on Vimeo or read the script.

These pages contain information about the proposed changes to mental health and learning disabilities and autism services. During September and October 2020, we asked people living in east and west Suffolk to let us know what they thought of our plans by filling out a survey.

That survey is now closed. Thank you to everyone who took part.

You can still use these pages to learn about the current plans. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us:

Email: wsh-tr.mhprogrammeteam@nhs.net
Phone number: 0800 389 6819

From November 2020, once we’ve heard what everybody thinks, we will work with our co-production partners to see if we need to adapt the plans and make changes. We’ll then let you know what changes have been made as a result of the feedback we received. This will be early 2021.

The next stage will be to take these plans and make them a reality for service users, carers and staff. This will all take some time. The new services will start to become available from summer 2021.

We’ve tried our best to make sure everyone can take part. The information is presented in captioned videos with written transcripts. Also in written form and diagrams. Information about the Learning Disabilities and Autism Services is available in Easy Read. The survey can be accessed in an Easy Read format. Please note, the survey is now closed.

If you would prefer to access the information in a different way, please get in touch.

Email: wsh-tr.mhprogrammeteam@nhs.net
Phone number: 0800 389 6819

Do you think our plans will make things better?

In 2018, the Ipswich & East Suffolk and West Suffolk CCGs joined forces with the other organisations responsible for mental health and emotional wellbeing services in east and west Suffolk.

Together, we’ve been having ongoing discussions with patient groups and the public. As well as people who work in healthcare, social care and education.

Sometimes we’ve spoken to people directly. And sometimes, we asked independent groups, such as Healthwatch Suffolk and the Suffolk User Forum to speak to people.

Overall, we heard from more than 4,000 of you. We called this #AVeryDifferentConversation.

The purpose of this conversation was to figure out how mental health services could be improved.

Because we were talking about lots of different aspects of mental health services, we broke them down into four categories:

We gathered all of the things you told us, and used that information to plan improvements.

In autumn 2020, we asked you to help us again.

What we asked you to do

We asked you to consider the plans we’d made, and tell us if we’d got things right. We asked you if you thought that the changes we’d proposed would make mental health services better.

Lots of you watched our videos and looked at our plans before filling out they survey.

There’s still time to learn about the plans. For more detail, visit each of the four different sections below.

Or, if you work in healthcare, social care or education in east or west Suffolk, visit our workforce page.

You can also learn more by watching the recordings of our live Q&A events.

Easy Read surveys – please note, the survey is now closed

If you’d prefer to complete the survey in Easy Read, there is one survey for each of the four kinds of mental health services.

If you’d like some help completing the surveys, please call us on 0800 389 6819.

Would you prefer to print the surveys and fill them in on paper? If so, please post them to us at the below address:

Quince House Floor 2
Suffolk Alliance Mental Health Programme Team
West Suffolk Foundation Trust
Hardwick Lane
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 2QZ

Watch the recordings of our live Q&A events

Lots of you joined us for Q&A sessions, held via Microsoft Teams. Our project team presented the plans, and responded to your questions.

29 September, 10.30 am – Q&A event for the public

This event has now passed. Watch the recording of the live Q&A below. Or watch the Q&A recording full-size on Vimeo (opens in new window).

20 October, 4.30 pm – Q&A event for the public

This event has now passed. Watch the recording of the live Q&A below. Or watch the Q&A recording full-size on Vimeo (opens in new window).

26 October, 10.00 am – Q&A event for the public, hosted by ACE Anglia

This event has now passed. Watch the recording of the live Q&A below. Or watch the Q&A recording full-size on Vimeo (opens in new window).

Key themes that came up in the first phase of #AVeryDifferentConversation

Amongst other things, people in east and west Suffolk told us that they’d experienced:

Difficulties accessing services
Difficulties in having their needs met
Not enough support in the community
A lack of information and signposting to help and services
Not enough continuity in support, particularly after they’d been discharged from hospital
A feeling of not being listened to or understood
Low-quality services
Missed opportunities where their care could have been more joined-up
Services which were under-resourced
Not enough support for carers
Not enough support available digitally
Not enough support in schools
Difficulties transitioning from child to adult services

We’ve used these key themes as a foundation for our plans. Our ambition is to ensure excellent mental health and emotional wellbeing in east and west Suffolk. And we plan to achieve that by ensuring everyone gets:

the right support
at the right time
from the right people
in the right place
and in the right way

The Suffolk Mental Health Alliance

The organisations that are responsible for planning and delivering mental health and emotional wellbeing care in east and west Suffolk have formed an Alliance. As part of this Alliance, they launched #AVeryDifferentConversation to help improve service provision in our area. The members of the Suffolk Mental Health Alliance are:

The Suffolk Mental Health Alliance is different to other Alliances and this is because it is supported by three co-production partners, these are: Suffolk Family Carers (SFC), Suffolk Parent Carer Network (SPCN) and Suffolk User Forum (SUF).

Frequently asked questions

1. Why are mental health services being transformed?

Despite the best intentions and hard work of many people, the system for mental health and emotional wellbeing in Suffolk is not meeting patients’ expectations or needs. The system we have is also not adequately designed to meet the changing needs of our population, therefore, work needs to be undertaken to improve services.

The 10 year East and West Suffolk Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Strategy captures the #averydifferentconversation themes and objectives of the transformation.

2. What is the vision?

Our vision is that ‘The people in east and west Suffolk can get help and support in the right place for them, when they need it, to stay mentally and emotionally well.’

3. Is this just for Suffolk?

This Transformation programme is being led the Suffolk Mental Health Alliance covering Ipswich and East Suffolk and West Suffolk and covers all mental health services provided in Suffolk (excluding Waveney). This simply means that the whole system across Suffolk (commissioners, statutory and non-statutory providers, partners, and regulators) will be working more closely to support a population of circa 780,000.

4. Will it make a difference?

We believe that, in order to achieve excellent mental health and emotional wellbeing, everyone should get the right support, at the right time, from the right people, in the right place and in the right way. Our principles for success are:

Everyone’s view matters
We will make children and young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing the foundation of our strategy
System-wide responsibility to deliver and support resilient communities
Additional investment
Prevention and early intervention is as important as treatment
People should be supported to care for themselves
Physical and mental health will be integrated
Services will be led by people’s needs
Utilisation of digital and technology
Recovery focused approaches
Normalising mental health and emotional wellbeing
Supporting the workforce

5. What timescales are being worked to?

The aim is to have all transformation plans in place for mobilisation from June 2021. This does not mean all the changes will happen by then; it means that all the plans will be ready.

May 2020 – Dec 2020

A full suite of detailed pathways that document service user’s journey will be developed
Each pathway will have a predicted demand/capacity, workforce and finance model developed
Public and staff engagement on proposed pathways will take place
Pathways reviewed by NHS England Clinical Senate

January 2021 – June 2021

The pathways will be translated into a number of specifications which detail the how, who and when
Process concluded to determine which Alliance partner(s) are best placed to take a lead on providing each specification
A due diligence process will be undertaken
New contracts will be signed with the providers and the services will be made live

If you’ve got a question that’s not on this list, please get in touch with us at wsh-tr.mhprogrammeteam@nhs.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. And if we think it’s a query that would be helpful for other people, we’ll add it to this list.

Don’t worry, though – we’ll keep it anonymous.

Phase 2 – From Engagement to Design

Completed August 2020

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 our 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.

It is important to note that while all this very necessary work is being carried out, we are already investing in local services for which there is a clear and obvious need. This investment has included:

£2.6m for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies and Long Term Conditions (IAPT and LTC) – as part of our drive to integrate physical and mental health services we are working with WSFT and ESNEFT by placing ‘talking therapies’ into hospital to support the mental health and emotional wellbeing needs of patients with diabetes, COPD and cardiology (and other conditions over time)
£2.1m for the development of a Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team – we have worked with partners to agree the business case for delivering a dedicated 24/7 telephone response service in Suffolk via the NHS 111#2 facility as well as providing support in patients’ homes where appropriate
£1m towards improving Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services – this new service will deliver support for patients presenting with psychosis in line with NICE guidelines, and
A range of grant-funded voluntary sector and primary care initiatives including Dementia Together (£70,000), Survivors in Transition (£149,000) and Suffolk MIND (£42,000) – we recognise the vital role that voluntary and community services can play in supporting patients’ mental health and emotional wellbeing and are committed to utilising this in our future service model.

In addition, we are currently developing new community-focused integrated mental health services for Haverhill, Suffolk Coastal and Ipswich under the Early Adopter initiative, which will run from autumn 2019.

Once we have designed our mental health service models we will work with our alliance and co-production partners between October and January to develop them further and work through how we commission and deliver them.

#averydifferentconversation documents

Click here to view #averydifferentconversation documents

Read the latest newsletters

September 2019 – HERE

September 2019 – Easy Read version HERE

November 2019 – HERE

November 2019 – Easy Read version HERE

February 2020 – HERE

February 2020 – Easy Read version HERE