The amalgamation of Camden into a single management structure with a Director of Mental Health Services (Colin Plant) has led to the removal of the former distinction between South and North Camden Services. In line with this, the former North and South Camden Locality Management Advisory Groups – LMAGs - have been replaced by a single Borough Management Advisory Group – BMAG. This diverse group met for the first time on Friday, 18th July at The Spectrum Centre in Camden Town and was to hear a presentation on different types of Day Provision from the First Step Trust in Lambeth. This organisation is about work and sees all its service users as ‘work colleagues’, people who are integral to getting the job done and are treated with the respect that this earns. The idea met with a mixed reception. There was much discussion about Social Firms and whether they will become a clear part of the future. The future of Camden’s Day Services (including the Day Hospitals) is the focus of the Best Value Review which will begin in the Autumn. The LMAGs were quite diverse structures which brought together the Management Team, Councillors, voluntary sector providers, carers, service users and other representatives from Primary Care, Housing, Probation and the Police. Their great strength was that they carried out service visits and talked to the people using those services. One of the difficulties was retaining the membership and containing them since there were more than 15 and sometimes as many as 20 people. The BMAG has yet to have the debate about why it has been created and if it needs to exist and what its composition and purpose will be. One of its clear problems will be the numbers and making all the parties feel that they have a role in this new group and seeing how it fits with what is already there. If it is to remain in being then it must have a clear link to the commissioning structure and at its first meeting Camden PCT was well represented. It must also be linked to the new National Service Framework Local Implementation Team that is being establishes These discussions will be held in the time gap between its first and second meeting, which is due to take place at the end of October and will have an emphasis on the new Early Intervention Service (EIS). This is the important new development which aims to detect and treat mental illness at an early stage and not leave it to wait for years to pass before anything is done. There is good evidence that such an approach leads to much better outcomes for people. Whatever else happens, CMHC/CBUG will continue to be represented and The Camden Bugle will continue to report developments.
Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust have received a two star rating from the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI). The rating covers the year from March 2002 to March 2003. Last year Camden and Islington Mental Health NHS Trust received a one star rating. The two star rating indicates that the independent Commission for Health Improvement has assessed that the Care Trust is performing well overall. This year’s ratings (2002/3) are the first for which CHI has responsibility. The full list of ratings for mental health trusts can be found at www.chi.nhs.uk/eng/ratings/2003. The star ratings are based on a set of "key targets" and three "focus areas". In each of the three focus areas – clinical focus, patient focus and capacity and capability focus – the Care Trust was in the top band of performance nationally. The individual ratings are based on key performance targets that cover a number of specific areas from the number of outpatient waits to the cleanliness of Trust sites. This success can be directly attributed to the Care Trust staff, whose hard work and dedication makes a real difference to the care and well being of mental health service users across Camden and Islington however we want to be more inclusive of the views of service users in our work. Within my a week of my one-year anniversary with the Care Trust the post of Social Care and Inclusion Development Manager will finally be filled. Robert Jones will commence work on 26th August 2003 and will pick up the tasks that Joe Bishop has managed for these past few months. Robert came through a challenging recruitment exercise to clinch the role – which will itself be challenging. His career includes a time as Director of a local MIND and Robert joins us from SIMBA, a service user organisation in South London. The consultation on the Service User Involvement Strategy has now ended and the Service User Strategy Steering Group met on the 15th July to consider and pull together all the feedback and comments collected. The document will be re-drafted for final consideration at the Steering Group before its release. May I take the opportunity to thank all of you who have responded to the Draft Strategy your comments and suggestions were very welcome and will assist us in the shaping of this important Strategy. The Care Trust recently advertised for service user participation on a number of committees including, The Care Trust Forum, The Complaints and Incidents Committee, and The Clinical Governance Committee. There was a positive response and individuals forwarded their applications. It is anticipated that we will be able to recruit to these positions ensuring that service users are represented on these key committees. The Care Trust is running another Recruitment and Selection Training afternoon on 28th July for service users who wish to participate on Care Trust staff interview panels. There has been a large response and places are almost filled, but if you would like to find out more please contact Angela Hall, Service User Involvement Co-ordinator on 020 7530 2744. The Mental Health User Advisory Group (MHUAG) has recently opened up membership, and the numbers attending are growing substantially. The MHUAG will be having a separate additional meeting in the near future to discuss and implement a way forward in which to make sure that the Group continues its good work, with the larger numbers of individuals involved. The Service User Supervision Group now runs monthly prior to MHUAG meetings. After a slow start where the Group was initially poorly attended, service users are now coming to the Group in greater numbers and this is encouraging. If you would like to know more about the Supervision Group, and come along and share you experiences relating to your active involvement in Care Trust business, please call either Angela Hall on 020 7530 2744 or Rachel Finkel on 020 8219 1904 for an informal chat. At the Care Trust Board in June 2003 service users who were dissatisfied with their experience of planned and actual changes at the Felix Brown Day Hospital attended and made a petition from the floor. This was heard and responded to at the meeting by the Board and in particular by Directors involved in, and responsible for, the changes and delivery of services. Many contacts were made as a result and Directors agreed to meet with service user groups to discuss the issues.
Good news is so rare, that we certainly like to headline it. The future of the Felix Brown Day Hospital, both short- and long-term always seems to be doubtful. It has been intended that the unit should make the very unsatisfactory move to Level 2 at The Royal Free Hospital and remain there for about two years whilst the new Tower Block is built on the current Felix Brown site. They were all packed up and ready to go when they were informed that it was not going to happen – not then anyway, and there was no definite date. The Felix Brown User Group then showed the power of service users by taking the issue to the last Care Trust Board meeting. There have been a number of meetings since then, but the news is that the move for Felix Brown and its patients and staff is imminent. This leaves the User Group to tackle the long-term issues. We wish them luck. STARS The Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust is boasting about the fact that it received two stars in its Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) Review. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust was also rated two stars. This compares with the one star that Barnet & Enfield Mental Health Trust and two stars Central and North West London Mental Health Trust received and the three stars that South London and Maudsley Trust was awarded. Stars are awarded to Acute Trusts and Primary Care Trusts too. University College Hospital London was awarded three stars (it had to reach this level it it is to be considered for Foundation Hospital status) The Royal Free and The Whittington Hospitals achieved two stars whilst both Camden Primary Care Trust and Islington Primary Care Trust were only awarded one star. Barnet PCT and Brent PCT achieved only one star but Haringey PCT was awarded two. What it all means is somewhat difficult to define. Whether it has any real value or will only mean that Trusts will spend all their time trying to achieve more stars is also open to discussion. If there is a Five Star Hotel then you can choose whether to use it rather than the Three Star Hotel, but since there is no choice about which mental health services you use or have forced upon you, there are real questions about the value of the exercise.
There have been a number of moves recently to bring together the user groups in Camden and Islington. One of the reasons for this is the old maxim ‘strength in numbers’. With this in mind, the July meeting of the Camden Borough User Group (CBUG) was, in fact a meeting of IBUG (Islington Borough User Group) and CBUG. They met on a hot July afternoon in the overheated meeting room at The Huntley Centre and there were a number of representatives from both groups present to discuss the common issues and how the two groups would be able to work more closely together in the future. CBUG has been in existence now for nearly two years (the second anniversary of its launch will be marked by the Annual Service User Conference in November) and is grounded in Camden Mental Health Consortium which is a long-established user group with premises and infrastructure. IBUG is much younger, having only really begun to grow over the last year. From the start CBUG has been well-funded. IBUG has had to fight hard for its funding and is still not really in a position to open its own premises. So there is a clear disparity between the groups and this was readily recognised. Recent work by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health pointed up that it was funding which prevented real user involvement and that little could be done without it. However, the issues for service users are the same across the country. The way that services are structured; the medical model of mental illness; the absence of the kind of treatments that patients would like rather than the ones that they feel are thrust upon them. In Camden & Islington there is only one major provider of services, The Care Trust. To talk of choice is then pointless since there is none about where anyone receives acute care. But that is not unusual. What people want is some choice within the services that they use and want those services to be in decent conditions. There was no disagreement about this and everyone was keen that there should be joint working where the issues are the same. It followed from this that there should be further joint meetings between the two groups with these set at a minimum of two each year to share learning, and further meetings on an ad hoc basis. Mental Health services are commissioned by the relevant Primary Care Trusts in Camden and Islington. The IBUG-CBUG meeting was joined by Katrina Anderson and Herbie McKenzie, who commission Camden and Islington services respectively, to discuss a proposal for the establishment of a one-year post to work across the District and with the roles of supporting and sustaining CBUG, developing IBUG and looking at joint issues which are of concern on a district-wide level. This proposed post would be funded by CBUG, IBUG and some extra money from the Commissioners to establish it. Everyone liked the idea and the IBUG members needed to take it back to that group for discussion. CBUG had already discussed it at previous meetings and they supported the idea and thought that it would be very useful in developing a more coherent approach to issues. CBUG is now up to full strength and it is beginning to look at the way that it works. In September, it is planning to hold a CBUG Development Day with the assistance of the Tavistock Consultancy. This will be an opportunity to explore the many issues of user involvement and in particular to allow CBUG to begin to establish a Protocol of Engagement for the way that it is prepared to work with the organisations that want it to be involved with them. USER ADVISORY GROUP (UAG) The widening of the membership of the User Advisory Group has had the desired effect – more people are coming. The meeting on Friday, 18th July, brought further new faces to this well-established group. In keeping with its tradition of providing information, the meeting started with a presentation on the human Rights Act from Dave Shepperd. This important area of law is developing all the time and may have a substantial effect on users of the mental-health services over the coming years. The meeting then went on to consider its own future and what rules it should apply to itself. It was decided to set up a working group of five members each from Camden and Islington to hold a meeting before the next UAG on Friday, 15th August, to discuss the governance of the group and report back to the main meeting. The September meeting of the group will have a presentation from the Chief Executive of SIGN, the Hearing Disability Organisation, on the difficulties faced by those who have both hearing problems and mental health problems.
Aidan Moloney is the Co-ordinator of Camden & Islington Providers’ Forum (CIPF). In future we will be including regular monthly contributions from Aidan telling people what is happening in the voluntary sector. Aidan can be contacted by post at Camden & Islington Providers’ Forum, Legard Works, Legard Road, London, N5 1DE; by ‘phone on 020 7226 2022, and by e-mail cipf.office@virgin.net The following items of news from three of CIPF’s members may be of interest to Bugle readers. Assert – Training Courses in Self Advocacy For those wanting to gain assertiveness skills and learn more about their rights as a mental health service user, Assert provide self-advocacy courses running over four days. Those who attend receive a certificate on completion, with the possibility of going on to do assistant advocacy training. The next course for 2003 will be held on Friday 28th November, Monday 1st, Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd December at Caxton House, 129 St John’s Way, N19. For further information and application form contact Assert Advocacy, Waterlow Unit, Whittington Hospital, Highgate Hill, London N19 5NF or telephone 7530 2234. Stuart Low Trust Project Plan for 24-hour Centre in Islington The Stuart Low Trust has appointed a student placement, Sara Nasserzadeh, to work on developing its 24 hour centre project plan. Over the next three months Sara will concentrate on gathering evidence for the centre, including consultations with potential users and partner organisations. In the next few weeks, she will be contacting individuals across the sectors to arrange a face-to-face meeting to discuss views. For more information, please contact the Stuart Low Trust on 7226 5255. Umbrella’s Hampstead Health Fun Run The Hampstead Heath Fun Run is now in its seventh year, and Umbrella want you and your friends and family to join the fun. Supported by UK Sport, this event takes place on Sunday, 14th September, starting at 11am. at the Bandstand on Parliament Hill. There will be refreshments, prizes and entertainment. For further details contact the Organiser, Catherine O’Reilly, Umbrella, 61 Islington Park Street, London, N11QB. Telephone: 020 7359 5385. Fax: 020 7359 5426.Email: coreilly@umbrellacare.org.uk
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