19 February 2021

Statement from Lesley Halford, Service Director, Mental Health, Milton Keynes

Over the past 18 months we have been developing our ambition for a new community Mental Health Hub in Milton Keynes.

We captured essential feedback from people who are or have used our services and also from carers and family members, about what has worked well and not so well.  

At the heart of these changes are the patients, who will receive person-centred care within the new model of care. Their voice has been key and will continue to be so as we develop our ambition around a new Mental Health Hub. Our overriding focus is to develop a service that offers the right care in the right place at the right time.

We’ve modelled ourselves around a needs-led service, which allows service users to tell their story and be confident it will be heard and understood and continue to be heard throughout recovery.

We’ve also committed ourselves to offering a wider range of interventions than was previously the case and to the development of a Mental Health Community Recovery College here in Milton Keynes.

So far, we have developed a new 24/7 Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Team because it’s known that home is often the best place to be than on an inpatient unit.

We’ve recruited staff who can help service users find and maintain work, have recruited peer support workers to provide lived experience. and we’ve worked with MIND to develop a local Crisis Café in Bletchley which provides support and advice to anyone in mental health distress.

Most importantly, we’ve created our Mental Health Hub – bringing together our main community teams into one. Here is where assessments will be conducted, care plans and recovery goals agreed with service users and appropriate support and help identified.

The hub is the centre of our operations and will go live on 29 March.

For more details please watch this video.