Concern raised about the lack of mental health care capacity in the NHS North Central London area

A lack of adequate accommodation and follow-up for discharged mental health patients has raised concerns among councilors in the NHS North Central London area.

Pippa Connor, chair of the North London Central Health Joint Review and Overview Committee, admitted there had been a huge amount of “incredibly positive and excellent” updates from Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) but due to the nature of the review meetings they had to focus on concerns.

During the meeting on Thursday 30 May, she asked about any improvements to support for people with serious mental health problems after discharge.

Cllr Connor referred to a previous long-term target NHS chiefs had made to use a joint approach with local authorities, particularly around housing, to support patient discharge.

Medical director for BEH and C&I Vincent Kirchner said the short answer was “no”.

He said: “We are in communication with our local authority colleagues but no, there has been no real movement in a meaningful way.

“What I would say is that the problem is growing, we have more and more people on our wards who are clinically ready for discharge, waiting for discharge and have nowhere to go.

“As a system we have to work on, I’m not sure we could divert NHS funding to housing, that would be a difficult conversation.”

Andrew Wright, chief of staff at BEH, said there was a significant amount of “energy to the endeavour” from the district’s divisional leadership team, working closely with local authority colleagues, but the fundamental problem was that they simply did not there is “adequate accommodation available”. and everyone is “competing for it”.

Committee member Cllr Larraine Revah asked about follow-ups for recently discharged patients, particularly council tenants. She said her neighborhood of Camden had a “high level” of mental health problems and she found it “extremely difficult” to help people “quickly enough”.

She said it wasn’t always easy to know who to contact because of “protocol” and asked if chiefs are working with safer housing departments to make sure follow-ups happen and complaints from neighbors are reduced.

Kirchner said the creation of neighborhood teams working in an integrated way with primary care, the local authority, the voluntary sector and NHS professionals was the “vehicle” they wanted to create.

He admitted there was still a “way to go” and this reliance on community teams over GPs or crisis lines was “very much” still developing.

Some positive news that BEH announced was the confirmation of the name of the new partnership between BEH and C&I, The North London Mental Health Partnership, which Amanda Pithouse, chief nursing officer at BEH and C&I, confirmed was “on track ” to begin. on October 1.

She also confirmed that Islington’s 78-bed mental health inpatient unit, Highgate East, opened in April.

A new mental health crisis assessment service, a 24/7 emergency service to “avoid people going to accident and emergency and presenting themselves there”, also recently opened in Highgate West.

Alongside this, a new state-of-the-art integrated community center has opened at 1 Lowther Road in Islington.

Special meeting JHOSC – NHS Quality Accounts, North Central London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Thursday 30 May 2024, 2.00 p.m.

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