Sheena Cumiskey, Chief Executive Officer for the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership, chaired the Mental Health sub-cell meeting on 1st December 2020.
Key Messages
- Demand and acuity continues to be high, especially for adult acute beds, PICU beds and Children’s and Young People’s services
- Mutual aid arrangements across Cheshire and Merseyside continue to be strengthened to mitigate the increased demand
- It is planned that the Resilience Hub will go live week ending 18th December
Operational Issues/Workforce Challenges
- As of 6th December, 98% of C&M adult acute beds were occupied, as were 95% of all PICU beds
- Children’s and Young People’s services in C&M have also seen a 100% increase in demand compared to the same period last year, especially in young people with eating disorders
- Services for older people are also experiencing increased pressure, with a lack of available beds and ongoing difficulties with transfers to care homes
- The increase in demand combined with the non-availability of staff due to social distancing, shielding and sickness absence continues to be an issue
- An initial meeting has been held between bed management leads across the mental health trusts to improve mutual aid arrangements in acute and PICU bed provision
- North West Boroughs has run a mini procurement exercise with the independent sector to increase the number of step up/step down beds available. These have also been offered out to other C&M trusts through mutual aid
- The sub-cell’s presentation for the Q2 NW Deep Dive in to mental health provision has received good feedback, allowing for challenges and issues to be articulated to regional colleagues.
Resilience Hub
- The Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Lead, Senior Operational Manager, Project Administrator and Principal Clinical Psychologist have started
- Two Assistant Clinical Psychologists are in the recruitment stage; and advertisements have gone out for a further three Cognitive Behavioural Therapists and a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist. The Hub will go live once these posts have been recruited to
- Standard Operating Procedures are being finalised for the service
Next steps
- Work will continue to embed mutual aid arrangements across C&M
- It is planned that the Resilience Hub goes live week ending 18th December 2020
- Discussions will be held with regional colleagues to further enhance collectively problem solving.