Early Signs of Psychosis (AESOP)

Community Mental Health Services – CMHS

Purpose

CMHS is a Community Mental Health Team that works with Adults aged 18 and above. There is no upper age limit as the service will provide mental healthcare for adults older than 65 years of age who do not suffer from dementia.

Its primary role is to provide ongoing community treatment and support for adults suffering from severe and enduring mental disorders. The service has an eligibility criteria to ensure the multi-disciplinary team works with the most severely ill service users who have complex needs and high risk. The service works with patients experiencing schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, psychotic depression, major depressive disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, treatment resistant anxiety spectrum disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Irrespective of the nature of a person’s mental health disorder CMHS has an aspiration to achieve the best possible recovery for all users of our service.

Location and Contact Details

The service is organised into three locality teams West and Central & South based at Chantry House, Newport. And North East who see patients by appointment at the Ryde Wellbeing Centre.

CMHS main base is Chantry House – 29-31 Pyle Street, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 1JW.

Tel: 01983 525254.

Referrals

CMHS receive referrals from the Trust’s Single Point of Access Service (see Access to Services), Community Child and Adolescent Services (patients approaching 18^th Birthday) and the Trust’s inpatient mental health wards based at Sevenacres Mental Health Unit.

CMHS does NOT receive referrals from the public, GP's or agencies external to mental health services. All enquires for crisis, urgent or routine assessment should be directed to the Islands dedicated Single Point of Access Team based at Sevenacres.

CMHS Services and Interventions

CMHS services provide individual caseload management from allocated Care Co-Ordinators usually a mental health nurse, social worker or occupational therapist. The most vulnerable and complex patients will receive this care under the Care Plan Approach (2008) a way of comprehensively assessing and delivering mental healthcare based on the service user’s needs and wishes.

In addition to Care Co-Ordinators provision the service also provides therapeutic skills based group work, nurse led clinics for patients requiring ongoing monitoring but who do not require a Care Co-Ordinators and outpatient clinics with consultant psychiatrists.

The service has a small team of psychological therapists delivering evidence based psychological therapies to CMHS patients. CMHS are actively planning to develop psychological therapeutic interventions to enhance the quality of our care.

Help with targeted support to achieve recovery is also provided by experienced support workers working in conjunction with Care Co-Ordinators for patients with complex needs or more autonomously for patients with lower risk where support work can be reviewed regularly in supervision under qualified staff.

CMHS has a dedicated DUTY service to provide assistance and problem solve issues with service users open to the service.

The CMHS is actively trying to embrace and deliver a recovery focused service and works collaboratively with the islands emerging charitable and 3^rd sector Wellbeing Service.

 Do take a look at the videos below which provide an overview of different aspects of this service. 

Access to Services   - Single Point of Access Service

Purpose

Access to all mental health services on the Isle of Wight is provided by the Single Point of Access Service (SPA). The SPA team conduct all crisis (within 12 hours), Urgent (within 72 hrs) and Non Urgent (within 28 days) assessments on the Isle of Wight. Their primary purpose is mental health clinical triage and face to face comprehensive assessments of mental health presentations.

SPA conduct structured risk assessments, comprehensive biopsychosocial assessments and identify treatment pathways for service users who will require specialist secondary care. The service also signposts to alternative help and provision if this is thought more appropriate to a person’s needs. This can include recommendations for self-referral to the primary care based Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Service (IAPT) or onward referral to social care and voluntary sector help.

Location and Contact Details

The SPA service is based at the Integrated Mental Health Hub, South Block at St Mary’s Hospital Newport. The service operates 7 days a week 7am – 10pm throughout the year and the crisis phone line is staffed by clinicians during these times. Contact Telephone Number: 01983 522214

111 offer a 24/7 service for people experiencing mental health crisis and difficulties. Calls are transferred to a mental health clinician for advice and support.

Referrals

The SPA service is an open access team that will accept self referrals from the public, requests for crisis intervention from service users open to CMHS out of hours and requests for advice from partner agencies.

SPA is the sole referral point for all Isle of Wight GP's who phone all crisis and urgent mental health assessments through and will email routine requests for mental health assessment to the service.

SPA accept referrals from a broad range of statutory, non-statutory and third sector providers. These include local authority social services, probation services, housing providers, social care providers, police and ambulances services, third sector/voluntary organisations and other partner agencies.

SPA Services and Interventions

SPA is primarily an assessment team tasked with appropriate clinical risk triage to determine urgency of patient needs and safe assessment scheduling. An evidence based risk assessment triage tool (TAG) is used to prioritise assessments working collaboratively with callers to manage risk proactively.

Face to face structured assessments are provided exploring the nature of the problem or crisis, mental state examination, risk assessment and risk history, physical health, family, substance misuse, social history, employment, summary and plan.

Following assessment or telephone contact SPA will signpost or refer onto relevant agencies / services for support and intervention.

Onward referral to specialist secondary mental healthcare is provided by the SPA Service who work collaboratively with CMHS services in recognizing severe and enduring mental illnesses that require further monitoring, support and intervention.

Referral to primary care based help (IAPT) services or 3^rd sector are also started from SPA involvement.

SPA conduct a weekly Consultant Psychiatrist review to provide medical oversight of risk and patient needs, medication advice and management is provided to GP's requesting prescribing guidance for patients with mental health problems that can be safely treated in primary care.

Dr Alexis Bowers, Consultant Psychiatrist, Clinical Lead for Adult Mental Health Services shares information about the community mental health services on the Isle of Wight. 

Vivien Bush, Mental Health Practitioner, Community Mental Health Service shares her experience of working with people who use our services, and what they can expect when attending an appointment.

Laura Wilkes, Senior Administrator, Community Mental Health talks about what you can expect when you contact the community mental health team to make an appointment.

Pete Hadrill, Occupational Therapist, Community Mental Health explains more about his role as Occupational Therapist and the support provided for people who use our community mental health services.