11.12.14
Eight pilots to lead innovation in children’s mental health provision
Eight pilot schemes are to ‘lead the way’ in innovating change to services for children and young people with mental health issues, NHS England has revealed.
The clinical commissioning group (CCG) led pilots, which have been awarded up to £75,000 each as part of a £500,000 fund, will now have until April 2015 to get their new approaches up and running and will then share learning across the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) sector.
Successful pilots will take place in NEW Devon CCG, Derbyshire CCG, Newcastle CCG, Tameside and Glossop CCG, Norfolk CCG, Southampton CCG, Wolverhampton CCG and South Sefton CCG, with the money being spent on providing staff with the time to reassess the systems in place to commission CAMHS from schools up to inpatient beds and try to affect change through new ideas.
Examples include improving services for children who might not need inpatient CAMHS care but have serious problems with self-harm or drug abuse; helping schools to manage early signs of mental health problems in pupils; and training pupils and families to be involved in the commissioning process.
Funding for the pilots has come from the multi-million pound investment pledge made in October by NHS England CEO Simon Stevens and deputy PM Nick Clegg.
In total, NHS England received 94 bids from 149 CCGs outlining the basis of their plans. The successful schemes were chosen by a panel of representatives from the Department of Health, the Department of Education and NHS England.
Dr Martin McShane, NHS England's director for people with long term conditions, said: “Vulnerable children and young people need services they can rely on in a crisis. However, we know that by intervening effectively for young people when they begin to show signs of mental health problems we can significantly lower the chances of them needing specialist inpatient care.”
Many of the applications were jointly between CCGs and their partner agencies in local authorities and education, demonstrating their commitment to working together to improve high-quality and better coordinated care and support.
Dr Jacqueline Cornish, NHS England’s national clinical director for children, young people and transition to adulthood, said: “It is exciting to see how some areas are making good progress in developing innovative solutions to address commissioning and transition challenges – we want to harness and accelerate this learning and give additional support to make a real difference to the way services are delivered.”
The pilot schemes will cover the whole care pathway for CAMHS care, from universal services provided in locations like schools through to inpatient services.
Alan Ford, spokesperson for the NHS Tameside and Glossop CCG pilot scheme, said: “This money will enable us to look at the whole system which is currently in place and assess how it can be improved for the benefit of children and young people in Tameside and Glossop.
“It is imperative that frontline staff are able to identify mental health issues early so that children and young people can be supported and treated quickly avoiding where possible the deterioration of conditions.”
Following a report in July, which found issues relating to accessing specialist inpatient beds and patients being admitted to services a long way from home, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Well-being Taskforce was set up to look at improving services.
The money for the pilots will be released immediately for use by the end of March 2015, and NHS England stated that they should be implementing the new co-commissioning approaches and sharing learning widely from April. Learning will then be fed into the Taskforce in early 2015.
The eight successful bids are:
NEW Devon CCG – £75,000
The project builds on NEW Devon CCGs and Plymouth City Councils integrated working. This will involve working closely with Plymouth Teaching School Alliance to develop whole systems approach for children and young people who may not meet specialist CAMHS criteria but who have significant issues such as self-harm or substance misuse. The pilot will work with education to develop a co-commissioned ‘Single Point of Contact’ for professionals and parents that will identify family risk factors and enable whole family care planning and early help.
Other partner agencies involved in the application
Plymouth City Council
Derbyshire CCG – £40,000
This pilot will provide commissioning capacity to enable schools to identify and manage emotional wellbeing and behaviour through early help and will be piloted with five schools as co-commissioners. The commissioned pilot service will build on good practice in integrated working, including ‘team around the school’, with multi-agency meetings to support children, young people and families. The pilot will test a single point of access, with a set of referral and threshold criteria which has been drafted for targeted and specialist services. The aim is to improve appropriateness and timeliness of access to specialist services.
Other CCGs involved in the application
Southern Derbyshire CCG, Erewash CCG, North Derbyshire CCG, Hardwick CCG
Other partner agencies involved in the application
Derbyshire County Council, Derby City Council, Local schools, Primary care, Voluntary and community sector, Children and Young People Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Newcastle CCG – £75,000
A joint bid across Newcastle and Gateshead’s local authorities and CCGs. They have already established a joint project to design a whole system approach to family mental health including wellbeing promotion, early support and evidence based practice. The pilot will create new commissioning arrangements by mapping CAMHS services and exploring a variety of contracting and payment methods, including personal budgets. It will build on the existing local waiting times initiative and Targeted Mental Health in Schools project. A group of children, young people and parents will be trained to be involved in the commissioning process.
Other CCGs involved in the application
Newcastle West CCG, Gateshead CCG
Tameside and Glossop CCG – £75,000
The pilot will equip all front line staff to be able to identify and respond to mental health issues within an agreed framework for intervention providing clear pathways and access supported by consultation, advice and guidance model. The pilot will review existing thresholds for Tier 2 (Targeted services) and Tier 3 (Specialist services) Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), benchmarked with other similar partnership services. They will ensure open consultation into developing thresholds and a service 'core offer’ at Tiers 2 – 3, with all partners including children, young people and families.
Other CCGs involved in the application
Through co-commissioning partners of the CAMHS contract and as wider partners of the
Pennine Care contract, Stockport, Oldham, Bury and HMR
Other partner agencies involved in the application
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (including Public Health and Education), Derbyshire County Council, Tameside and Glossop CAMHS (Pennine Care Foundation Trust), 42nd Street (voluntary sector organisation)
Norfolk CCG – £40,000
This is a consortium of Norfolk CCGs and the County Council. The pilot will focus on the learning disabilities pathway. This will allow specialist time to be dedicated to reviewing and jointly commissioning more robust pathways, from a range of agencies, with piloting of how CAMHS and LA outreach teams jointly manage a number of cases.
Other CCGs involved in the application
North Norfolk CCG, Norwich CCG, West Norfolk CCG, Great Yarmouth & Waveney CCG
Other partner agencies involved in the application
Norfolk County Council, Norfolk CAMHS Strategic Partnership (members include a range of Norfolk’s statutory and voluntary sector providers and commissioners)
Southampton CCG – £45,000
Currently Southampton City Council and Southampton City CCG undertake joint commissioning within an Integrated Commissioning Unit. The Headstart Project covers 21 schools within the city and includes Emotional First Aid training, school counselling and mindfulness training. The pilot will develop a framework for extending joint commissioning and integrated services to help young people address a range of inter-related personal, practical, emotional, health, social welfare and legal needs simultaneously. The pilot will also identify future opportunities for re-commissioning services looking at all resources currently spent on children and young adults in order to support improved transitions, including extending to a 0-25 service.
Other partner agencies involved in the application
Southampton City Council, No Limits (Southampton) Ltd3
Wolverhampton CCG – £75,000
Bid from Black Country CCGs and Wolverhampton LA to scope, map and analyse commissioning of CAMHS Tier 4 (specialised) and other health funded out of area placements, with the aim of preventing the large numbers of children from the Black Country being placed ‘out of area’. The pilot will develop specialist care pathways, improving early intervention and prevention to reduce the use of Tier 4 provision.
Other CCGs involved in the application
NHS Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG, NHS Dudley CCG, NHS Walsall CCG
Specialised Commissioning within the Birmingham Black Country and Solihull NHS England Area Team
Other partner agencies involved in the application
The Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Wolverhampton City Council, The Children’s Society
South Sefton CCG – £75,000
Wide consortium bid including LA and VCS partners, which builds on the DfE-funded BOND project (which focused on VCS role in brokering and co-ordinating youth-focused emotional wellbeing services in the community). The pilot will build on existing mapping to enable clearer support pathways for 5-25 year olds, and will work with children, young people and families to design the process. The pilot will use voluntary sector services within the partnership to deliver specific services that meet the needs of young people currently being referred to Tier 3 CAMHS but do not meet the threshold.
Other CCGs involved in the application
Southport and Formby CCG
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