People with mental health problems set to benefit from improved services

The South West Yorkshire Mental Health Trust are going to refer people who need to access mental health services straight to the community teams instead of to individual consultants. This will allow service users to be seen quicker and benefit from an improved service.

The change is part of ‘new ways of working’ which is a national initiative to ensure all staff work effectively to improve the quality of life and the experience of people using services, and their carers. It also promotes team working between different groups of professionals such as nurses and therapists.

Trust Medical Director Dr Booya says, “In order to support new ways of working, as from July 1st the Trust is planning a single point of entry into community mental health teams. This should help improve access and communications around the care of the service user.”

“New ways of working is a natural progression of multi-disciplinary working. It empowers team members to work more autonomously and collaboratively to deliver services based on individual needs and allows choice for service users.”

‘New Ways of Working’ will support the delivery of the core business of the Trust – service user centred mental health services.

All staff will be involved in implementing ‘new ways of working’ including support and administrative staff. “It’s an exciting challenge,’ says project lead Karen Lynch. ‘Hopefully new ways of working will benefit team members and people who use our services.”