Agenda item

This report provides an overview of the work of the Medway Community Support Outreach team.

Discussion

The Director of Children and Adults Services introduced the report. He advised that while the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) was the main provider of mental health services in Medway, the Council also provided services directly. The Community Support Outreach team was a key element of this provision as well as social workers. The Outreach team worked with people who had first time presentation of mental health to severe and ongoing mental health problems which impacted on their social and daily functioning.

The team delivered 21,000 hours of direct client contact between April 2016 and March 2017 with an average caseload of 104 people at any one time. Clients were supported to live independently in the community. This included people discharged from acute mental health hospitals and those subject to Community Treatment Orders (CTO). Clients were sometimes reluctant to have support due to their symptoms and illness.

A presentation on the role of the Community Outreach Team was given to the Committee. The key points of this were as follows:

·         The team had been established in 1989 with the name been changed and current name chosen by service users.

·         The service is provided 365 days a year including evening, weekends and bank holidays with office hours of 8am to 8pm during the week and weekends 10am to 2pm. 

·         Needs based provision tailored to the individual needs of a client was provided by the service.

·         There was a low staff turnover within the service with this continuity, consistency and experience being an important strength both for the staff and to working to strengths based approaches for clients.

·         Robust induction training was provided to new staff.

·         The best outcomes were achieved through partnership working.

·         Outreach workers were matched to individual service users. The Outreach worker engaged with clients and listened to their needs, sometimes through the undertaking of several visits.

·         An overview of a number of clients who had been successfully provided services by the Community Support Outreach team was highlighted.

·         The service was able to work with clients on a short or longer term basis, from 6 weeks through to 18 months or longer.

·         The team had recently received an inclusion and diversity award at the Medway Council Make a Difference Awards 2017.

A Committee Member congratulated the Outreach Team on their work and emphasised that it was important for the Council and other organisations to work together to ensure that mental health issues were detected at an early stage.

In response to a Member who asked whether the team received adequate support from other Council departments, the Medway Community Support Outreach Team Manager said that her team were currently working with Housing and that the support provided had been good. Lots of strong relationships had been built between the service, other Council departments and external partners.

A Member asked whether there was scope for the service to be expanded, whether there was a possibility of obtaining a financial contribution from external organisations, how individuals accessing the service could afford it and whether volunteers were used. Officers advised that there was currently no waiting list for access to the service. For most clients, the first six weeks of provision was free unless they were subject to S117 aftercare. For clients needing longer term provision, a preventative and reablement pathway could be followed initially. In order to provide longer term support a longer term needs assessment would be undertaken. Volunteering would be further explored with there being two individuals currently interested in becoming volunteers to support carers. It was recognised that additional provision was needed and it was considered that discussions may be needed with commissioners and partner organisations. It was noted that the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Plan highlighted the importance of addressing the physical health needs of people with mental health needs.

A Member highlighted the importance of prevention rather simply providing treatment after a crisis point had been reached and questioned what would happen in the event of a client relapse. Another Member was concerned that there were multiple providers of services, which could result in vulnerable people being missed. Officers advised that relapses were followed up with clients and that although there would be a referral process to go through, efforts were made to make this as simple as possible for the client. The service would work with the client to identify their individual needs and signpost them to the most appropriate service.

Decision

The Committee noted the report and commented on the update provided.