Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) has opened new integrated community mental health hubs across a number of local areas.
The hubs have been launched in Kensington and Chelsea and the Queens Park and Paddington area of north Westminster.
CNWL explains that the community mental health hubs are part of a wider, national direction to “bring together primary and secondary care mental health services” and provide more joined-up care for patients and their carers.
After working closely with multiple stakeholders – such as GPs, local authorities, and other areas within the trust, CNWL says it has created integrated hubs which ‘promote community resources working together as one team, centred around local Primary Care Networks, to deliver care based on the needs of the population’.
The hubs will provide access to mental health specialists and professionals – from doctors and nurses through to pharmacists, therapists and social care workers.
Additional funding has also meant expansion to include more community navigators, peer support workers, and other staff.
It’s hoped the hubs, as part of a wider, national model, will ‘promote simple routes for GPs to obtain mental health advice and support for patients’, provide triage from qualified mental health staff, and help to improve communication and the sharing of learnings.
Other aims are for care to become more personalised, faster to access, simpler and more consistent.
To find out more about the hubs, and the area’s mental health provider Community Living Well, click here.
