To receive a report from Manager of the Healthy Young Minds Service.

Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care presented the six month update to the Board. Since the last update on the Healthy Young Minds service there had been a large increase in the numbers of the referrals made to the service. A review of the capacity and demand of/for the service had been conducted following its restructure. The review found that the service is slightly understaffed at 5.8 FTE below what is needed in order to deal with the current level of demand.

The Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care had contacted the CCG to inform them of the gap and have received some positive feedback. The service had done a lot of work on reducing waiting times and a new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) was to be introduced on the 26^th March. The EPR would enable better tracking of demand and performance and help identify children who need support. The Electronic system would also improve the data flow into the system and Trafford’s access to data. This would enable better analysis for the area which would in turn help to provide and develop services going forward.

The staffing restructure of the service had been finalised which included new service leadership team of a new operational manager, new child psychiatrist and the pre-existing child psychiatrist. There had been an increase of children who were presenting with crisis, especially those aged 18 to 20 years old. The GM children and young peoples’ crisis pathway was working to tackle this increase by creating two safe zones within GM to provide crisis respite. The new pathway was scheduled to launch in April and would increase support outside of standard working hours and ensure that support was available within communities. These changes represented a £12m initiative which would hire an additional 50 staff across GM from June. The service had a thrive design looking at none medical solutions and it was expected to be fully implemented by 2020.

Following the update, Committee Members asked a number of questions of the Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care which covered a various areas including; the connectivity of the new EPR system, what the reasons were for the increase in demand, and the level of support that was available in Schools. The Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care gave detailed responses to Member’s questions and the Members were satisfied with the answers received.

The Chairman expressed her disappointment about mental health provision for young people in Trafford, GM, and nationally. The Chairman stated that it was clear from the update that there were still issues persisting within the Healthy Young Minds service and requested a further update within 6 months’ time. The Chairman also requested that the Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care review the recommendations of the Committee’s draft Young People’s Wellbeing report to give her feedback.

RESOLVED:

1)    That the update be noted.

2)    That the Committee’s draft Young People’s Wellbeing report be sent to the Associate Directorate Manager (South Division) for Pennine Care for her feedback.