Hello everyone, welcome to another audio blog by Matthew McKenzie a carer from Lewisham working with the South London and Maudsley along with slamtwigops to promote services and keep carers, service users and health professionals informed.

You can check out our Facebook page which usually has daily news updates on mental health news in and around South London, we sometimes upload photos to Facebook and love likes and discussions. Feel free to follow slamtwigops twitter page on updates and perhaps retweet anything you feel interested in. Or for more in-depth details you can follow slamtwigops blog which sometimes has similar updates to Facebook, but more in-depth topics on many updates concerning mental health and health communities in South London.

Welcome to our first audio blog of the year 2014 and a happy new year to all our followers. For our first event coverage of the year, slamtwigops went over to the Croydon Voluntary Action building which promotes,supports and develops effective voluntary action, community development and community involvement for the benefit of the whole community within the London Borough of Croydon.

You can check out their site here -> http://www.cvalive.org.uk/

Now what was I doing at the Croydon Voluntary Action building? Well it was to attend the Croydon Mental Health Forum, which runs every First Tuesday of each Month.

The Croydon Mental Health Forum is open to people who use or have used mental health services, carers, the voluntary and community sector, and anyone with an interest in improving mental health in Croydon. Professionals from Croydon’s services are invited to openly discuss to their services at the forum. So for Tuesday 7th January 2014 the forum was packed with information, workshops and guest speakers who were:

1. Active Minds from Mind in Croydon

2. Clinical Commissioning Group on the development of their The Mental Health Strategy

3. My Health Locker from SLaM

I ll try keep the audio blog short and cover how the event went that day.

First we had Jane White who usually does the minutes and also helps host the event introduce us to the event after the attendees had some lunch provided at the forum. Then we had an introduction by the chair David Ashdon who gave us a run down of what was going to happen today at forum.

Our first guests at the forum were Peter, Dora and Alex from Active Minds from Mind in Croydon. Peter gave us a talk about what the Active Minds service does over in Croydon.

Now if you check out the section of Mind in Croydon's site on the Active Mind's service which is -> http://www.mindincroydon.org.uk

Then click on Home, then Services, then Active Minds

You can do the following:

- Take up a new activity or re-ignite an old interest- Meet up with a buddy who will support you to access your chosen activity- Get advice on healthy living and improve your physical and mental well being- Join in on some of the groups they run- Get involved in your local community

We were next shown a video from BBC MOTD 2 how Crystal Palace are working with the local charity (active Minds) to promote physical activity among those with mental health issues.

You can watch the video on -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25305273

Next we had Alex talk about referrals

- How active minds accept referrals.- Referral forms off care co-ordinator were on site at the forum.- Then he talked about buddy support service.

Remember you can get more information off the Mind In Croydon website which is -> www.mindincroydon.org.uk

At the forum we then had a Focus group on what could be improved on for Active minds focus on.

The focus group was on 5 tables

And here are the brief answers:

1. What sort of physical sports in the community

- Buddies to motivate

- Role models

2. Music class / chess class / poetry and reading class

3. Courses, travel fairs support, co-coordinator on why they not referring, different reasons of why people are not going for support.

4. Some prefer doing Activities by themselves, however some are motivated by others, physical activities release endorphins, coping strategies help.

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Next to speak about a topic was, believe it or not. Myself. I was given the opportunity to speak about slamtwigops blog and why I was here covering the forum. I spoke about what the blog/social media hub offers and request some to pick up the cards I left in order to follow the blog and engage with SLaM involvement.

So please follow our blog on: http://slamtwigops.wordpress.com

The next speaker was Patrice Beveney - Comission Manager for Mental Health of Croydon CCG who gave us a presentation of "The Croydon's Mental Health Strategy". We also had Oliver the Commission support officer to help out.

Now Patrice talked about the following :-

- lack of capacity in secondary care (which is the NHS)- Current care pathway and problems- BME over represented in services- SLaM feel are over loaded.- Personalisation issues.

Now Patrice showed us several slides:

The first showed difference of trusts in patient in spending on resources on in-patient beds.

The next slide looked at

- Ratio of spend between adult inpatient and community services- Trusts in London showing the number of admission rate, SLaM was quite high.- Croydon has a large number of those having a CPA.

Patrice also presented the following:

- Slide shows how services might look in future- We want services to work alongside people, rather than services doing things for people, we

want the barrier lessened and more SU decisions on how they are treated.- CCG want to look at lessen over reliance on SLaM beds.- We want a more holistic approach from primary care- We feel privilege to have Active Minds in Croydon.- As GPs we do not have knowledge of the groups that can help with mental health.- We want to reduce our reliance on secondary care services.

Although Patrice explained a lot about the strategy, I will quickly move on to the presentation of the last slide - which was the community mental health service provide by SLaM

- Patrice talked about clustering and he explained that the Cluster was to look at those using SLaM services who should not be there.

- Patrice then talked about Payment by results, we are moving towards a activity payment result.

- He explained that 20 clusters are nationally set- People who are in cluster 1, 2, 3 and 4 should not really be in Secondary care and should

perhaps be using IAPTs.- 3,500 to 4,000 but 50% belong in the 1,2,3,4 cluster.- We need to identify who out of the cluster are using the SLaM services so they can come out

of those services and use secondary services.

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We then had a question and answer session about the strategy.

Now in order to keep the audio blog short, I’ll try pick out a few questions, you can look at the written blog for the rest of the questions and answers.

* Critical of secondary services already, what will change?

o More can be done at primary care to support SU's, although it’s not unique to SLaM of these problems.

o We need to make use of the info we have to make decisions of the future.

* What you do does not touch us and this is worrying, we need more talking therapies, counselling, too long waiting list for sure services.

o Talking therapies I agree have taken some time to doo There is a big difference of what we have in Croydon and what we hope to acquire.o This is an issue of money, plus we have a low number of talking therapy specialists

compared to other boroughs.o This is not helped by restriction of public spending.

* We are not numbers, but human beings, why do we have to wait for the psychiatric liaison service which is pot luck, why are there no beds in Croydon? It seems most beds are in West Wickham. If there is overspill, they then end up pushing us back to SLaM. Why isn’t stuff being done to look at how many BME being over represented in the mental health services?

o I agree, not the best use of resource, especially if patient experience of lack of beds.o This will not change in a minute, although in Croydon there has been a reduction of

beds in the 5 years. We also have to admit there has been a large population change in the borough and an increase in BME population, which the slides show this, is partly the reason why BME represented in mental health services.

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We then had another Workshop session concerning the strategy, which led back to a Feedback session from each table.

The questions were basically looking at what would stops from you getting into a crisis with your mental health, and there was a list, which I unfortunately could not get hold of with things we could rate that would help against a crisis.

Still I’ll try to put down what the answers were.

(Barbara)

- Postcode lottery, services are helpful and some aren’t- We are more aware of services, but unfortunately through being ill.- Early intervention is needed, rather than more support that is too late- Support in activities- Real need to try and avoid contact with secondary care services because they can be

damaging and unhelpful

- Found it difficult to agree on what is helpful.- 1 person thought all should be number 1- 3 people thought day centres to be important- 2 people thought IAPTs/talking theraphies were number 1- support and advice to carers is useful- internet access within day centres- Help in a crisis as a first- Day centres as second- Benefit advice third- Talking therapy as a wish list- Services and inclusion of carers- Life long learning useful as well.

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The last speaker to present at the HearUs Open Forum was David Newton (Programme Manager) and Laureen Vanderzeil (Occuptional Therapist) who were both from the new MyHealthLocker is an online system which allows patient to access their health records and take a more active role in their recovery.

Alongside related information, interactive tools and advice, MyHealthLocker will empower patients in the management of their care and help to improve wellbeing through instant access to their information.

David Newton spoke about how the utility will empower patients by building utility based on feedback by:

- user interface developing from applied feedback- taking the best of breed applications- NHS tech fund- Iframe widget

Measurable and direct benefits of MyHealthLocker are part of a formal evaluation being conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry. This will study the experience of using an ePHR, and whether it can support an increase in the uptake of PROMs, which to-date has seen an increase.

David Newton also talked about another adhttp://slamtwigops.wordpress.com/d on feature to MyHealthLocker which is called Living Well Live. Here are the benefits of Recovery and Support Plan created in living well live. Plan owner (patient) and a nominated lead supporter can add people to their plan and update the plan.

• All listed users of the plan (plan owner, carers, professionals, supporters) can leave comments on the plan.

• Comments stream much like a blog roll • Each comment can be published on this page and also Living Well Live

broadcast to all listed users of the plan as a group email.

We then had a question and answer session about the presentation. Here are some of the questions and statements that were pointed out.

It seems confidential information access can be a problem, so as usual those working on MyHealthLocker is using a step by step process.

Medication can affect cognitive function, so how can they use this service? Part of this service is to capture the experience of those having difficulty with medication.

This will help in a co-productive relationship with the doctor. Doctors need to be educated on the use of medication and on how to balance the affects. It’s important for records to be kept up to date, especially care plans. Any space for carers’ information? Confidentiality issues?

Needs development, but there is access with agreement from the patientThere maybe a separate locker for carers.

* Does the MyHealthLocker only work for SLaM Service User?

You can see MyHealthLocker in action off the SLaM YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/slamnhsft/videos

Well what did I think of the open Meeting?

- As usual I enjoyed the food they served.- Then listening to the guest speakers and also participating- It was also nice to share our experiences and meet new people.- I do have to admit asking questions can take some time, since so many are eager to have

their questions addressed, but most times you will get a chance to ask a question

The HearUs Open Forum usually runs once a month every first Tuesday of each Month. So keep an eye out for more future meetings off the HearUs web site -> http://www.hear-us.org then click on the link called open forum.

As usual, thanks for listening to my awfully long audio blog, and remember to check out our other twigops sites on Wordpress, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube.