Job responsibilities
SERVICE DETAILS
Families and Integrated Community Care Division
The Trusts mental health services are part of the Family and Integrated Community Care Division. The Division has wide ranging responsibilities within the Trust which include Community Dental Services, Sexual Health Services, Specialist Continence Services, MSK and Podiatry, Speech and Language Therapy and Dietetics, Hospital OT and Physiotherapy, Community Brain Injury Rehabilitation, Community Nursing and Rehabilitation.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, the Primary and Intermediate Mental Health Team (PIMHT), IAPT (locally called the NHS Talking Therapies Blackpool), the Psychological Therapies Team and the Community Learning Disabilities Team are provided within the Families Division. The Homeless/Rough Sleepers Mental Health Service is a new service and is part of the Primary and Intermediate Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Service within the Families and Integrated Community Care Division.
Primary and Intermediate Mental Health Team
The staff in the PIMHT service are organised into:
- Locality/Neighbourhood Team
- Specialist Outreach support (Autism Spectrum Team, Peri-Natal Team, Early Help Outreach Team, ADHD, Adult Mental Health Social Care)
- Homeless/Rough Sleepers Mental Health Team (new).
The PIMHT team is a unique mental health team in Blackpool which offers Neighbourhood or Locality support function in addition to Specialist Community Outreach support to meet the needs of the diverse population of Blackpool.
The team provide access to mental health services to individuals experiencing mild - moderately complex mental health difficulties. The team comprises of mental health practitioners who provide comprehensive mental health assessments, short-term working, and signposting to other appropriate services.
The Community Outreach Team specialises in engaging with more complex and vulnerable individuals with mental health difficulties. The team works throughout the Blackpool CCG locality, conducting home visits and/or meeting patients at various clinical locations. They form strong links with all services in Blackpool and work collaboratively and in partnership with other services including third sector. Our outreach teams consist of practitioners specialising in:
- Perinatal MH
- Adult Mental Health Social Work
- Early Help Outreach Team
- Autism
- ADHD
Clinical Psychology
The Psychology Team offers assessment and treatment to people with complex and chronic psychological and emotional difficulties alongside mental health symptoms and, in the learning disability team, challenging behaviour. These presentations will have a significant effect on the persons relationships, day-to-day activities, and self-care. In addition to 1:1 support the team will also support with risk management, group interventions, and staff/team training to enable greater psychological thinking. Our Psychologists and Consultant Psychiatrist will be expected to work closely to ensure the service delivers safe and effective support to vulnerable clients.
Learning Disability Service
Community Learning Disability services are provided in collaboration with Blackpool Council, centred on multi-disciplinary teams. The Specialist Support Team within Merseycare NHS Trust provide an intensive support function (via the Intensive Support Team) for people with challenging behaviours, including wrap around support as part of the community infrastructure to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. Merseycare NHS Trust are also responsible for the forensic pathway for people with a learning disability and autism. Joint referral meetings are in place between the Blackpool Learning Disability Team and Merseycare to ensure care and treatment is provided by the most appropriate team. There are well developed supported living schemes in the area.
Currently mental health services in Blackpool are being developed with secondary care services and other partners such that elements of the PIMHT may be incorporated into secondary care services.
THE HOMELESS/ROUGH SLEEPERS MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE
National context
The population of people who are homeless is characterised by multiple and complex needs severely poor health, deep social exclusion, and early death. Poor health is often both a cause and an effect of homelessness, and the two tend to interact in complex and mutually reinforcing ways.
Alongside their high and complex needs, people who are homeless commonly face a range of barriers to accessing health and care services. These can include:
- Difficulties navigating the health and care system, due to a range of different factors including low literacy skills, language barriers, complex administrative processes, and lacking means of transportation.
- Reluctance to engage due to expectations of rejection or stigmatisation, or distrust of institutions, often based on negative past experiences.
- Chaotic lifestyles, in which health and care needs are often not an immediate priority service users can have difficulties keeping to appointments and can be difficult for services to contact through traditional routes.
- Attitudinal issues within services and among some staff, including the stigmatisation of people who are homeless, a lack of confidence and a lack of understanding around working with this population group, including being sufficiently trauma-informed.
These factors can mean that problems remain undiagnosed or untreated until they become acute, and that continuity of care is difficult to sustain and compounds the challenges around the effective treatment and management of conditions, which are already significant given the level and complexity of need. The NHS Long Term Plan also evidences the need for additional support for homeless people, particularly around mental health provision.
Local Context
Local need is predominantly in the Blackpool area; it is the most disadvantaged Local Authority in England, with the worst life expectancy for men. As an old coastal resort, levels of transience in the population are high this has an impact across the Fylde Coast and, whilst the number of people that need support in Blackpool is measurably higher, there are people across the entire area, including Fylde and Wyre, that are rough sleeping, at risk of rough sleeping, or in unstable accommodation.
Blackpool has approximately 200 people rough sleeping each year and 600 at risk of rough sleeping who are living in temporary accommodation. Nearly half of the cohort has been assessed as having multiple and complex needs including mental health and substance misuse.
The Homeless/Rough Sleepers Mental Health Team
The Homeless Mental Health Service (HMHS) is a multidisciplinary, co-located service, based at Winston House, Blackpool. The service provides mental health support to homeless people on a planned and drop-in basis. The purpose of the service is to provide a joined up, holistic approach to improving health and care outcomes for rough sleepers and homeless people.
The service is not intended to be an urgent care service but rather support improving outcomes for ongoing complex needs. The purpose of the drop in element is to provide a flexible entry point to the service, not address urgent care needs. Urgent care needs will be addressed using urgent care pathways, as appropriate to the individuals needs.
The service will run 5 days a week. Within these, 4 days will be dedicated to patient facing contact in a variety of settings (clinical, non-clinical and outreach, including the health bus). Individuals will be offered the opportunity to access the service remotely (e.g. via telephone, where this is appropriate). The remaining 1 day will be available to support team development, multidisciplinary team meeting discussions, and team administrative duties.
The clinical element of the mental health service will be delivered by Blackpool Teaching Hospitals as part of the PIMHT. This will be delivered by:
- Consultant Psychiatrist (clinical lead for the service, Mental health practitioners (Band 7 non-medical prescribing mental health nurse (team leader), Band 8B therapist, Band 6 x 2 mental health nurse, Band 5 mental health allied health professional, Band 4 x 2 mental health allied health professional) Administrator
The team is hosted within the existing Primary and Intermediate Mental Health Team. This will allow easy access to the full range of PIMHT, LD services and IAPT alongside pathways into acute service for physical health delivered locally.
More information regarding the Homeless Service is available upon request. Please contact Dr Leon le Roux (Consultant Psychiatrist, PIMHT; 07500 027 648) or Ms Kirsteen Langton-Flint (Head of Integrated MH and LD Services; Kirsteen.langton-flint1@nhs.net )
Local Working Arrangements
The Trust is seeking a consultant psychiatrist to join the Primary and Intermediate and Homeless/Rough Sleepers Mental Health Teams or the Homeless/Rough Sleepers Team on a part-time basis. The teams are located at The Shorelands and Winston House respectively with the base for this post located with the Homeless/Rough Sleepers Team at Winston House.
The team has access to IT support from our in-team administrators and medical secretaries in addition to trust support from the Blackpool Victoria hospital site.
The post holder will carry no responsibility for inpatients.
