A new initiative designed to help people suffering from mental health problems in Sheffield is being piloted by the Central Sheffield Practice Based Commissioning
Consortium.
The initiative, funded by the Central Consortium in partnership with NHS Sheffield and Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust, aims to bring workers with specialist skills into GP surgeries and closer to patients, offering easier access to specialist assessment and treatment.
Dr Karen O’Connor, mental health lead for the Central Consortium, said: “We recognise mental health as a priority for our patients and the need to improve the services on offer.
“This initiative is now being piloted with two specialist mental health workers offering help to patients in seven of our GP surgeries.
“Most people can be helped within the surgery providing they have access to the right level of support, rather than having to attend mental health services elsewhere. This means fewer specialist appointments are wasted.”
The pilot complements the government’s ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ initiative (IAPT), which has resulted in the placing of new IAPT workers in almost all of Sheffield’s GP surgeries, offering evidence-based help to people experiencing problems with depression and anxiety. IAPT promotes self-help and offers people easier access to a choice of talking treatments.
Dr O’Connor said: “Although the idea for our mental health pilot was conceived separately from IAPT, we are already finding that all the therapists are working together as a team for the benefit of patients, to direct them to the worker or service which best meets their needs and in turn, reducing waiting times.”
The consortium’s pilot is running until July 2010 when it will undergo a full evaluation to identify the positive outcomes of the scheme.
If successful, a proposal will then be submitted to NHS Sheffield, suggesting the scheme is rolled out across the rest of the consortium, or Sheffield as a whole.
Dr O’Connor added: “This is one of several initiatives currently being developed by the Central Sheffield Consortium that are benefitting patients as a direct result of practice-based commissioning.”
Practice-based commissioning is a new way of working introduced by the government that allows groups of GPs and community clinicians to come together to plan and implement better services for their patients.
The Central Sheffield Practice Based Commissioning Consortium is made up of 28 practices which work together to improve healthcare services in central Sheffield.