South London Mental Health and Community Partnership Annual Review 2023/24

3 Welcome Thank you for reading our Annual Review for 2023-24, a year when NHS mental health services faced more demand than ever. At the same time as delivering for our patients and populations as three Trusts, our unique partnership stepped up another gear to introduce a host of new services, programmes and projects to further improve specialist mental healthcare in south London. Our continued commitment to collaboration, and our focus on patient outcomes, has meant that even in challenging times for the NHS, we have continued to increase the proportion of community-based care for complex and challenging specialist cohorts of patients, closer to home. These improvements go hand in hand with delivering better value for the NHS. Caring for more patients outside hospital settings improves their outcomes and experience. This includes reducing admissions and readmissions, and length of stay in inpatient care when it is required. We have also brought patients’ back into south London and specialist local NHS services – which means reduced use of expensive out of area and independent sector beds. We have been able to reinvest savings in further innovative and effective community-based services, continuing the cycle of improvement. For example, investing in the pioneering new Adult Eating Disorders Community Enhanced Treatment Team helped transform patient outcomes and keep people out of hospital. Average length of stay (LOS) was cut from 120-180 to 99.5 days, and we reduced admissions by a huge 60% for this cohort of patients. We have reduced use of overall Forensic (Adult Secure) beds in south London by 24%, enabling us to invest in specialist new community Learning Disability and/or Autism (LDA) community accommodation, and expand the expanded Forensic Intellectual and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (FIND) Community service. This all helps to step-down patients more quickly, and safely, from inpatient settings to more independent, community- based care, and a better quality of life. These are just examples of how we aim to raise the bar in proactive, clinically-led and service-user- informed commissioning. Together we are delivering more personalised care, innovative new pathways - and improving lives of some of south London’s most vulnerable mental health patients. We worked with our two ICBs and partners across the NHS, wider public sector, housing providers and the third sector to create and implement new care models for some of our population’s most vulnerable residents. Highlights include launching and scaling up significant new services together: • NHS 111 for Mental Health - a 24-7 specialist urgent care telephone service for all south London’s 3.7 million people • P erinatal Provider Collaborative - a new delegated NHSE specialist commissioning collaborative which has brought 17 partners together already to tackle this regional population health priority • Police Advice and Guidance Line - giving 40,000+ frontline Metropolitan, British Transport and City of London Police officers better support 24-7 when attending mental health crises, and getting people to the right place for their care sooner at their time of greatest need • Opening a specialist new ward for Forensic patients with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism (LDA) - a cohort who have experienced significant inequalities in provision can now be cared for in south London, supporting step-down to less restrictive and community environments • Integrated Community Rehabilitation Service - step-down accommodation for Complex Care patients in partnership with specialist third sector provider • D edicated in-reach services for Complex Care patients to improve discharge/step- down outcomes - Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) and Co-Occurring Mental Health Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Team (COMHART) teams • A dult Eating Disorders Community Enhanced Treatment Team