Case study: Leicestershire Mental Health Facilitator service

Case study: Leicestershire Mental Health Facilitator service

The continuing success of the ‘Good Thinking’ service is a tribute to the commitment of a group of clinicians determined to break down the barriers between primary and secondary care. This could not have been achieved without the support of a third sector organisation committed to care models that really work for service users and a private sector body committed to primary care commissioning.

Dr Terri Eynon, Chair of the Leicestershire IAPT Consortium Board

GPs in Leicestershire have designed an innovative service to manage people with severe mental illness in primary care. GPs on the Leicestershire IAPT Consortium Board recognised that, along with patients with anxiety and depression, there were other patients with mental illness whose care either did or should take place in primary care. They worked with Assura Leicestershire LLP practice based commissioning group, Leicestershire Partnerships Trust and the charity Rethink Mental Illness – the ‘Good Thinking’ partnership – to develop and deliver a Mental Health Facilitator (MHF) service.

The service, commissioned by Leicestershire County and Rutland PCT as part of the IAPT service, addresses the needs of patients with non-psychotic and chaotic and challenging disorders (care cluster 8) – who are often unreachable by secondary care but present frequently to their GP – and the general care needs of stable individuals on the Severe and Enduring Mental Illness (SEMI) register who are being managed in primary care (care cluster 11). The Mental Health Facilitators work with the primary care teams to determine, on a practice by practice basis, how the overall aims can best be met. Their role can therefore include individual work with identified patients, work with practice nurses to help SEMI registered patients receive generalist care, work on mental health reviews, supporting GPs with chaotic patients unsuitable for secondary care or supporting patients awaiting a CMHT assessment.

In the year after the implementation of the MHF service (09/10) Leicestershire County and Rutland was the highest performing PCT across the region for indicator MH09 -
“The percentage of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses with a review recorded in the previous 15 months. In the review there is evidence that the patient has participated in routine health promotion and prevention advice appropriate to their age and health status”.

Community health networks study
We have just launched a new research study looking at how people with severe and enduring mental health problems build and use community health networks to support their health and well being. The study, run by Rethink Mental Illness, Peninsula Medical School Plymouth, Imperial College London and Kings College London, aims to map how individuals, health services and other community organisations interconnect, and to measure the health benefits of these networks. The two-year study will produce tools and resources for individuals and health services on how community health networks can best be supported, and you can follow its progress by registering for its community health int

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Comment by Alison J Stevens on April 16, 2011 at 15:40
This register has made me feel like nothing on earth, and i feel is a veil of secrecy.
I am glad i was called for a review, otherwise i would of never of known, what the mental health register means.
With reference to the secret family courts this lot could be used against you, as we know that anyway.
Heavens knows what my GP Practice have on file about me.

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