THANKS 

CMHC would like to thank the Mercers’ Company for its generous donation of £500 towards our general running costs.  This is the second time that this City Livery Company has funded CMHC.

 WELCOME 

CMHC would like to welcome Ros Lettman who has been seconded to the post of Service User Involvement Co-ordinator.  CMHC looks forward to working with Ros and hopes that she will be a regular attendee at CBUG meetings.

 CMHC SUMMER  BARBECUE 

Just a reminder that the CMHC Summer Barbecue will be held in The Courtyard at St Pancras Hospital from 6.00 – 8.00 pm. on Friday, 6^th August  All service users are welcome to attend.  We would advise people to come early, because although we have ordered more food than last year, it does tend to run out.  This will be the second year that we have held a Barbecue and last year it was a tremendous success.  We are repeating it and hope to make it a regular feature in the CMHC calendar.  All we can hope for is fine weather and a good time should be had by all. 

CMHC  ANNUAL  GENERAL  MEETING 

As Members will know because of the communications that they have already received, the Annual General Meeting this year will be held from 6.00 – 8.00 pm on Tuesday, 21^st September in The Sir William Wells Atrium at The Royal Free Hospital.  Once again we would like to thank George Platts and his team at North Camden Mental Health services for all their help and support in organising this event. 

We have not sent copies of the Annual Accounts out as a matter of course (to save costs on printing and postage) but anyone who wants a copy can obtain one by calling us at CMHC on 020 7419 4196.  Copies will also be available on the night of the AGM.   

As in the past, we have invited a guest speaker.  This year it will be Miles Rinaldi from the Social Exclusion Unit at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and he will give a presentation and answer questions on Social Exclusion and Mental Health with particular reference to Day Services.

The meeting was far from wasted since it presented an unusual opportunity for the people there to talk and discuss a number of points such as why so few people attend these meetings and what it is that causes the numbers to vary so much from meeting to meeting.  We are considering some of these points and will be asking people more about their views in the future.

 The next meeting of the North Camden User Forum will be held from 5.00 – 6.30 pm in Room 20 in the Psychotherapy Corridor on the 2^nd-floor of The Royal Free Hospital (near Psychiatry Out-Patients) on Tuesday, 3^rd August.  There will be two presentations:  The first, a half-hour on Smoking Cessation and what provisions are made to help people ‘give up’.  The second will be on Hospital Food, when Dave Weaver, the Catering Manager at St Pancras Hospital, will be answering questions.  This is an opportunity to put all those points about the quality and quantity and variety of the food served in hospitals and to try and influence the future.

 The meeting on Tuesday, 7^th September, will bring George Platts, one of the two Assistant Directors of Mental Health Services fro Camden, to talk about the Nurses’ Tower development on The Royal Free Hospital site and the moving of the in-patient ward from Level 2 to this new site (on what used to be Felix Brown Day Hospital).  George will talk about what is happening and what the new wards will be like.  He may find himself with difficult questions about how long they will be used in the light of the Care Trust’s Review and what the future is for Felix Brown and Out-Patients.

 The meetings of the North Camden User Forum will continue until the end of this year.  It is time to look again at the North Camden User Forum and we will conduct some research into whether this is what our Members and other people who use the mental-health services want or if there is another and possibly better way to present information to people.


SOUTH  CAMDEN  USER  FORUM (SCUF)

The attendances at the South Camden User Forum had fallen so badly that we have not felt able to run it during the months of July and August.  It was too early for us to replace it with something else in July but in August we are trying something very different and more about Self Help to see if this is what people prefer.  If it is successful then we would consider this as the possible future format of SCUF or we might look at some more and different events. 

From 5.00 – 7.30 pm on Tuesday, 25^th August, at Camden Town Hall there will be a Workshop on Managing Stress.  This will be essentially about how people can help themselves to overcome what could be termed ‘the disease of the age’.  If anyone has any questions or wants more information they should call CMHC on 020 7419 4196 or e-mail: administrator@cmhc.org.uk

 CAMDEN  COUNCIL’s

MENTAL  HEALTH  LIAISON  GROUP 

This month’s Liaison Group meeting was held at NDC’s Crossfields Centre and started proceedings by having to find more chairs for the large number of people who had chosen to attend.  This indicated how significant the two major topics on the agenda have become to users of the mental-health services in Camden. 

The meeting started off by electing its Chair for the year.  Once again, this role is taken on by Cllr John Rolfe who has done much work in this area and was until his resignation earlier this year, a Non-executive Director on the Care Trust Board.  This formality over, the meeting went straight into a presentation from Lyn Romeo at Camden Social Services on the effect of the changes in the rules in relation to Fair Access to Care Services (FACS).  Whilst it seems that there are unlikely be no changes to those on CPA, there can be no such guarantee for people who use services like Day Centres but are not on CPA.  There was a general reassurance that these were not being considered, but it was pointed out that this does not make sense if all those on CPA are being reassessed in line with the changes.  It seems that this topic is far from clear and has not been explained well. 

The second topic Best Value Review of Camden’s Mental Health Day Provision has become inextricably linked to FACS in people’s minds whilst actually not being related to it and tied up with ‘cuts’.  All this seems to prejudice a positive view to BVR and looking to providing more appropriate and inclusive services in the future.

(BME) Communities.  The voluntary sector has a major part to play in the effective delivery of this strategy, a role that is highlighted in recent national policy documents and supported by the work already being done locally.  The 2004 Social Exclusion Report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledges that the voluntary and community sector is essential to deliver local services to adults with mental health problems and promote meaningful community engagement. 

The 2003 Department of Health report Inside Outside recognised the basis for developing culturally responsive services to be founded on key initiatives for change inside, within the services, and outside, within the communities.  A key objective identified in Inside Outside saw the need for enhancing or building capacity within black and minority ethnic communities and the voluntary sector for dealing with mental health and mental ill health. However, the report acknowledges that a critical factor militating against the sustainability of these innovations around ethnicity and mental health has been the lack of long-term funding. 

Locally, the voluntary sector provides an invaluable contribution to reducing health inequalities.  It does this by providing support to those who quite often are least likely to access it, and most at risk.  Particularly in relation to psychological therapies, services are targeted at economically and educationally disadvantaged people.  One CIPF provider commented, “by offering culturally specific services, we are successful in reaching out to a range of minority ethnic women.  70% of our current clients are from ethnic minority backgrounds.  Clients can choose to see a counsellor from the same ethnic or cultural background as themselves and/or receive their counselling in Turkish, Arabic or Somali.” 

Current initiatives such as the Local Implementation Teams, Local Strategic Partnerships, Compacts and various relevant funding streams can ensure that effective partnership working develops and sustains this work.  Mental health professionals need to be aware of the range of services available within the local community and referral systems need to take account of this rich diversity of resources within all sectors.

Ideally, the best treatment models will involve a wide range of independent and voluntary providers with successful working partnerships with colleagues in the statutory sector in order to deliver the best possible services to black and ethnic minority patients.

The fear in the room was both expressed and palpable.  It is clear that whatever has been said, it has not gone to reassure people or to cause them to look at the Best Value Review as a process for making things better.  Sadly, it has become inextricably entwined with the FACS changes and with Camden Social Services budget problems.  This is a serious failure in what should be an opportunity for people to explore different models of service and see if they think that they would like them in addition to what is now available.  It should be an opportunity for people to comment freely without thinking that they must defend what is there for fear of it being taken away.  Most of all the opportunity to look at in the context of the recent Social Inclusion Report and the right of all to have the full benefits and responsibilities of citizenship may have been missed.

 Apart from the absence of most of the Councillors who are supposed to be part of the Mental Health Liaison Group, there was no representative from the Commissioning arm of the Primary Care Trust to try and explain the position and try to further reassure people who are increasingly frightened about what may happen.

 The absence of a Commissioning representative also meant there was no definitive statement on the Camden Crisis House position.  The good news is that the Working Group is being reconvened and there is some reason to believe that a possible new property has come into view.

 Although there will be no meeting now until 2005 since the November meeting is going to be a joint meeting of the Liaison Groups, the Chair agreed that something might have to be added if the Government puts forward its new Mental Health Bill in September as it was suggested is likely.

NEWS  FROM  THE  VOLUNTARY  SECTOR

Aidan Moloney is the Co-ordinator of Camden & Islington Providers’ Forum (CIPF).  We include 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

Robert Jones, the Social Care & Inclusion Development Manager, provides a review of the month’s events within Camden & Islington Mental Health & Social Care Trust. Robert can be contacted at Care Trust Headquarters, 2^nd floor, East Wing, St Pancras Hospital, London NW1 OPE, by telephone on 020 7445 8554 or by e-mail robert.jones@candi.nhs.uk  

The Care Trust is pleased to announce that Rosalind Lettman, formally based at Drayton Park has been seconded to work with the Service User Resource Team.  She will work as the temporary Service User Involvement Co-ordinator, while we continue to speak to colleagues and partners about the future role that is required to support the work.  Ros will be based at St Pancras Hospital and can be contacted directly on 020-7445-3340.

The Service User Involvement Strategy is to be launched on Friday the 30^th July.  The launch will take place at the Groves Lounge at St Pancras Hospital from 3.30 – 5.30pm.  Everyone is welcome to attend, joining staff at the Care Trust in marking this significant area of work.

The Care Trust’s Service User Consultation Forum is on Friday the 30^th July, 1to 3pm in the Groves Lounge at St Pancras Hospital.  The key speaker at this event will be Lis Jones, the director of Nursing and  Performance for Camden and Islington Mental Health & Social Care Trust.

This event, which was trailed in previous issues of the Camden Bugle took place on 7th July.  Three local service users attended as well as the Director of Social Care and the Communications and Development Manager.  The event was structured as a conference, with workshops in the morning and plenary sessions in the afternoon.   An American, Don Berwick who is the Chief Executive of a Health Improvement Institute gave a powerful presentation about what a service-user would look for in a good provider of services.  Towards the end of the afternoon the Prime Minister, Tony Blair attended alongside the Secretary of State for Health, John Reid.  The messages were around the valuable work undertaken by

 the NHS and social care and the restating of the commitment to service user and public involvement in treatment and care, and choice.  A box of a publication called "Has Service User participation made a difference to social care services?" was ordered and copies will be available locally soon.  The learning from the two selected programmes will continue for the next few months.  PowerPoint presentations on these projects are available from Hari Sewell, Director of Social Care & Substance Misuse Services, tel 020 7530 6303 / hari.sewell@candi.nhs.uk

PRESENTATION  OF  THE  CARE  TRUST’s

STRATEGIC  &  RESOURCE  REVIEW  

The Care Trust asked consultants, Finnamore, to carry out a Strategic Review of its Resources and Estates.  A summary of the consultants Report has now been made available by the Care Trust.  Copies of that Summary Report are available from CMHC to anyone who would like to see it.  Just give us a call on 020 7419 4196 or send an e-mail to: administrator@cmhc.org.uk and we will send you a copy.

If the proposals in the Report are followed then they will alter the shape of Mental Health Services provided by the Camden & Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust substantially.  These are the services that CMHC Members use and we want to given them an opportunity to have their voice heard sooner rather than later and before any decisions are made.

The Care Trust has agreed to come along and present the Report to the CBUG Open Meeting on Wednesday, 18^th August 2004 at Hampstead Town Hall.  We will provide a Buffet Lunch from 1.30 pm and the presentation will commence at 2.00 pm and run until 4.00 pm.

This is an issue which cuts across Camden and Islington since it is how its main provider of services will operate in the future.  It is not only about in-patient beds but about Community Services too.  We are inviting colleagues from IBUG (Islington Borough User Group) to join us.

This may be one of the first times that service users from Camden and from Islington will have the opportunity to work together to see that they receive a good deal from any proposed changes.