Agenda item

Ms Vanessa Odlin, Director for Hillingdon and Mental Health Services, Goodall Division at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL), advised that the Crisis House provided by Comfort Care would be opening in the first week of August 2022. 

Hestia and CNWL had undertaken social media advertising in relation to the Cove Café which had resulted in a small increase in the number of people using the service (70 in March 2022).  Although this performance was better than other facilities in North West London in terms of presentations, the target was 140+ per month.  Information about these services had been shared with the Metropolitan Police Service and London Ambulance service and consideration had been given to targeting Heathrow hotels and capturing the user experience in a bid to increase numbers.  It was suggested that advertising needed to be much wider than just social media. 

Following concerns raised at the last Board meeting in March 2022 about the unprofessional approach of Cove staff, further training had been provided and the issue had been addressed immediately.

Ms Odlin advised that the number of crisis presentations in A&E for those aged 18+ had increased and that approximately 60% of residents presenting in crisis in A&E were not known to partners.  As such, consideration was being given to having Cove staff based in A&E at Hillingdon Hospital and to transporting those in crisis to the Crisis House or Cove Café which would provide a calmer and more appropriate environment.  Similar to Brent, Hillingdon would be extending the Cove service to those aged 16+ in the next three months.  It was suggested that links be made into Kooth. 

Whilst further support for those aged 16+ would be welcomed, Councillor Palmer queried how support could be provided to those who weren’t coming forward.  It was suggested that young service users ought to be asked where they thought other young people in need could be located.  Councillor Susan O’Brien queried whether Cove was the right place for 16 year olds to turn up.  The space needed to be right for them.  Ms Odlin stated that the risks of a 16+ expansion would need to be assessed and it was hoped that the work would help to support colleagues in A&E. 

With regard to population health management, opportunities to identify those young people who would benefit from using the services (but who were not accessing them) needed to be found.  Ms Lynn Hill, Chairman of Healthwatch Hillingdon (HH), suggested that this could be linked into the recruitment that was currently being planned for Young Healthwatch via schools in the Borough. 

Councillor Susan O’Brien suggested that CNWL try searching for these young people in community centres, P3 Navigator and foodbanks.  She queried whether the same people were currently being captured under different headers which would be wasting resources by duplicating work.

It was recognised that A&E should not be the first contact for residents in mental health crisis.  Consideration needed to be given to how residents could become smarter consumers of the system and how resources could be shifted from crisis to prevention.  All of the different parts of the system needed to be connected and communicated effectively to enable this to happen.  Mr Tony Zaman, the Council’s Interim Chief Executive, would speak to Ms Kelly O’Neill, the Council’s Director of Public Health, about the associated communications and strategy outside of the meeting. 

RESOLVED:  That the updates in respect of mental health crisis services be noted.