There are hundreds of things the NHS and social care organisations in south west London are doing to help people stay well this winter – we’re sharing 10 points from the winter plan.
Kingston Liaison Psychiatry are running screening and triage pilots to get patients to the right place, more quickly.
Ashley Joyce, who leads the Kingston Liaison Psychiatry at the mental health trust explains the number of people in crisis arriving at emergency departments is increasing.
“We’re receiving around 15 to 25 referrals a day from emergency departments, and we’re experiencing longer wait times for psychiatric beds when people require hospital admission. That’s not just in our trust, that’s across London. It feels like managing a ward-size number of patients in A&E.”
When people arrive in emergency departments, collaboration between hospitals team and mental health services is key to ensuring they receive rapid and appropriate care.
To address the challenges, Kingston Hospital is part of a rapid assessment pilot which is supporting patients arriving in emergency departments get to the most appropriate service as quickly as possible. Ashley explains: “We have a support worker based in Kingston hospital who can quickly screen patients displaying signs of mental distress, to see if they need an immediate assessment. It’s saved our team time, because we can prioritise the most acutely unwell patients who need complex clinical care. If it proves successful, we’re hoping to roll it out to more hospitals in south west London.”
We have a support worker based in Kingston hospital who can quickly screen patients displaying signs of mental distress. It’s saved our team time, because we can prioritise the most acutely unwell patients.
Ashley Joyce, Kingston Liaison Psychiatry Lead
Ashley explains the reasons why people suffering a crisis might arrive at A&E: “Sometimes people experience mental health relapse; sometimes they haven’t had any previous mental health support in the community. We also see older adults with cognitive decline arriving from care homes that can’t manage them, and we see an increase in people coming in with substance misuse or other social stresses.”
He adds: “The physical environment in A&E can be highly distressing. While Kingston has a mental health assessment unit, it was designed for no more than three patients so people are now ending up in corridors. For them, the uncertainty of not knowing what’s next can be incredibly difficult – which is why speeding up assessment is so important.”
Across each Emergency Department in South West London, Liaison Psychiatry teams like Ashley’s provide an important link to local mental health services. From the end of February, St George’s Team is due to begin trialling a similar triage system to enhance support available. And across South West London, ‘Enhanced Response Practitioners’ at South West London and St George’s work with patients under the care of community mental health teams providing a further alternative for anyone experiencing a mental health crisis.
Read more of our winter stories.