Agenda item

To receive an update of progress made regarding Priority One (Mental Health) for 2018/19.

The Board considered a report (Agenda Item 9) regarding the update from the Mental Health Action Group (MHAG) on their work around the Board’s annual priority for 2018/19 to ‘promote positive mental health and wellbeing for adults’.

Councillor Rick Jones noted that as Matthew Braovac had stepped down as the Chair of the MHAG, he had asked Matt Pearce to take on the role in the interim.

In addition to the information contained in the report, Matt Pearce explained that the MHAG was in the process of formalising activity into project plans for its four workstreams:

·         Celebrate, promote and connect existing resources especially those who provide Community Navigation and Peer Support

·         Exploring the introduction of a digital community resource directory for prevention, recovery and self-care

·         Investigating preventable deaths from physical health conditions of people with serious mental illness

·         Work with users and BHFT to co-produce improvements to patients experience when in crisis

The MHAG had successfully bid for the Board’s Priority Fund to support Eight Bells for Mental Health and Open for Hope, two peer support organisations. Work would be undertaken to clarify key performance indicators.

Matt Pearce also explained that the NHS Long Term Plan had many implications for mental health including smoking cessation support, psychological therapies and perinatal mental health.

Cathy Winfield noted the recent headlines regarding the impact of social media and mental health; she warned that the Emotional Wellbeing website, referred to on page 33 of the agenda, should be appropriately moderated.

Councillor Graham Jones sought more information on what measures of success the MHAG would be using. Matt Pearce advised that initially, outcome measures would be used for the projects which received funding but he was conscious that impact and not just activity should be recorded.

Tandra Forster asked whether the group had the capacity to take a formal project approach. Matt Pearce advised that it did, so long as effort was shared across the system.

Councillor Lynne Doherty enquired how the MHAG’s activities would dovetail with mental health services for children. Matt Pearce noted that a common query arose at the Board regarding relationships between the sub-groups and that had yet to be resolved.

Tessa Lindfield praised the group’s exciting work and asked whether the MHAG needed anything from the Board in order to help establish links across the system. Andrew Sharp suggested that it would be helpful to look at key metrics across the system such as mental health admissions. Jo Reeves reminded members that the Board formerly had a system resilience dashboard which included those kinds of indicators but the Board had decided that there was sufficient oversight on those in other parts of the system. It had therefore decided to focus on monitoring the performance of its own programme. Cathy Winfield suggested that the best approach would be to track inputs while keeping an eye on the outputs. She was also optimistic that the new population health management programme would support the production of live data. Dr Bahia noted that the Board’s Steering Group had a role to make links between different work areas and Board members had a role to deal with any blockages in the system.

Councillor Marigold Jacques asked how the MHAG worked with the community; Matt Pearce noted that there was a lot of input from the voluntary sector into the work of the group. 

Councillor Rick Jones thanked everyone for the wide ranging inputs into the conversation which included some immediate and some strategic matters which would be considered as preparations for the next Health and Wellbeing Strategy commenced.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.