Humber NHS Foundation Trust has secured a £700,000 grant to improve its mental health service at Hull and East Riding’s accident and emergency department.
The Trust will invest the money at Hull Royal Infirmary in a bid to reduce attendances, avoid unnecessary admissions and cut waiting lists.
Claire Holmes, the Trust’s interim care group director for mental health services, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to provide a more extensive and responsive psychiatric liaison service for people in crisis.
“We will recruit extra members of staff to our team which will work more closely with our hospital and social care partners to focus on preventative healthcare.”
Humber secured the £699,000 grant from NHS England following a bid submitted by partners involved in the Humber Coast and Vale Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). The plan is a blueprint for future healthcare and is designed to improve quality and care while ensuring the system’s financial sustainability.
By accepting the grant, Humber has agreed to:
• Provide a 24/7 mental health liaison service to Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (HEY), which runs the Infirmary;
• Provide a one-hour response time to emergency referrals and a 24-hour response to named acute wards;
• Ensure the service meets recommended staffing levels for liaison services.
Holmes added: “We will review our existing 24-hour liaison service over the next year and provide a new model in 2018-19.
“As part of this we will introduce a complex case manager and mental health social worker who will work with our primary care and community teams to help prevent A&E attendances by frequent attenders and people with medically unexplained symptoms.
Although the grant is a one-off, the area’s doctor-led clinical commissioning groups are required to provide equivalent recurrent funding to ensure the improvements are sustained.
