East of England NHS Specialised Mental Health Provider Collaborative

Starting in July 2021 and covering the East of England region, we have established new ways of working together to create services and support our patients in a better way that brings together all organisations with the patient voice at the heart of all we do.

We are the lead commissioners for specialist mental health services, and by bringing together our clinical, managerial, and patients and carers from across the six leading NHS mental health providers in region and local independent providers across the region we can start to tackle inequalities in care and create more specialist care, closer to home by developing what we call ‘hospital at home’ type care.  This specialist care is the development of and investment in more intensive community teams that allow people to stay close to their vital support networks within their own communities.

The Collaborative consists of the following six providers of specialist mental health and learning disability care, including autism. Our independent sector partners also contribute significantly to the development of our services and new ways of delivery:

• Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT)*
• Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT)*
• Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT)*
• Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL)
• East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT)
• Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)

(*) These three lead providers now hold the contracts previously held by NHS England, for the commissioning and provision of our services. We are committed to having equal, open and honest dialogue and support with all our providers within the Collaborative.

We commission the following three key services across our mental health and independent providers:

• Specialised Children and young people’s mental health (CYP MHS). Inpatient services and Tier 4 community alternatives - including services for young people with an eating disorder
• Medium and Low Secure Services for Adults with a Mental Illness and/or who have a Learning Disabilities and/or Autism
• Specialised Mental Health Services for adults who have an eating disorder  

By creating a single point of access for referrals, securing fast access to hospital where that is needed, and moving patients from hospitals out of the region back to services closer to home we can better meet the needs of all our patients. With a team of clinicians and referral management experts from across all our providers, we work with patients and their families to assess to offer the most suitable care for that person and wherever possible to offer an alternative to hospital admission. We will also support patient’s mental health conditions at the start of a diagnosis as well as support our patients’ following discharge from a hospital with much-needed advice, support, and guidance.

We aim to safely reduce the length of time people spend in hospital where that is appropriate by developing seamless services through the hospital into the community through our work with local authority and social care partners. The people who use our services work with us to design future services and to help us assure the quality of care we commission.

“We, the patient, and carer advisory group, I work with, help anyone who needs support by doing NHS improvement which then means better services.  The Provider Collaborative bring issues to us for new and existing services, and we talk about them and help by sharing our experiences and suggesting ideas of what or how to do it better.  These ideas go back and forth until we have an agreement with everyone and change happens”. 

• Service User with lived experience, Secure Services

By putting our patients and carers/parents/families at the heart of everything we do, our aim is to amplify the voices of those with living or lived experience of our care so we can learn and develop services that help meet these needs.  It is vital for us to work together and coproduce all our work jointly with professionals, patients, and carers alike and share equal power to develop and create services that make a difference now for our current patients and for all our future patients across the East of England.