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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
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“Imagine has a positive approach to mental health and works to promote opportunities for people to live a full and independent life.”In the last year the organisation has expanded. Today more than 1000 people use Imagine services, in Liverpool, Halton, Knowsley, Lancashire, Sefton, London and Greater Manchester.
Imagine is fortunate to have the support of many volunteers in addition to over 200 staff members.
Personal Health Budgets
Imagine have been working in collaboration with MerseyCare on personal health budgets. Read more about them and the positibe impact this can have on day to day living by following the link:
http://www.personalhealthbudgets.dh.gov.uk/_library/Resources/Personalhealthbudgets/2011/Razia_PHB_pilot_story.pdf
Rosie Childs Centre
Officially Open!
The Rosie Childs Centre opened Sunday 18th September – over 100 people attended and shared the fun. Whilst reading groups analysed literary pieces, others relaxed with chair yoga, or enjoyed pampering in one of the health and beauty, or holistic therapy sessions. Everyone enjoyed the running buffet throughout the day.
The afternoon culminated with the vocal skill of Rachel Brown, local singer, who entertained us with songs written herself and added the final touch to a truly beautiful day.
Bookings are already being taken for next week.
WE’VE DONE IT!
Imagine's Rosie Childs Centre
Charity Abseil
Friday 16th September 2011
21 Service Users, staff, and Friends of the Charity, are tonight preparing for a descent of the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral by rope tomorrow. Each of the brave 21 have signed up to abseil this historic landmark to raise money for the Rosie Childs Women’s Centre. The team begin their ordeal at noon, and we wish them all - good weather, and good luck.
Imagine would like to thank everyone for their generosity in supporting the event which has had a marvellous response. It’s still not too late to make a donation to the Centre, or indeed add a sponsorship for one of the climbers. Please contact Paul Edwards, Elaine Mather, or Kim Mason at Head Office on 0171 709 2366.
Full list of sponsors and amount raised will be posted following the abseil.
Sponsorship required for the Imagine's new service - Rosie Childs Womens Centre
The Rosie Childs Womens Centre is due to open on 18 September and will be the only women’s Mental Health Centre in Liverpool. Imagine, with consent from Liverpool City Council, have managed to fund a Sunday-only service but the budget we have been allocated is limited. As a result there are a number of financial pressures at the Centre and we are hoping to supplement the funds available by sponsorship.
The centre will offer a range of complementary therapies, yoga, art sessions including photography, animation & film, educational courses and wellbeing sessions.
If you would like to help please contact Elaine Mather, or Kim Mason, on 0151 709 2366.
The Rosie Childs Centre website goes live Sunday 18th September 2011 - www.rosiechildscentre.org.uk
Rosie Child’s Centre
Coming soon….
A New Women’s Service from Imagine in the Stoneycroft Area
A new weekend service with bistro cafe and holistic events, will be launched this autumn on 18th September.
Please see 'Forthcoming Events' for full details and to download your invitation.
Imagine announces the launch of the Mental Health Providers - Mindful Forum.
The forum is a platform for promoting discussion and profiling innovative ideas across the mental health sector.
Staff and Service Users can access the forum by using the links below - or via the Service User Tabs from home menu.
The Mental Health Providers Forum has launched Mindful Forum – an interactive new website for providers and users of mental health services. We are creating a platform which aims to engage directly with all mental health stakeholders to generate discussion and profile and promote ideas for practical improvement to services.
Ultimately we want to capture those ideas that highlight what well thought out mental health service delivery looks like, from policy through to delivery. The forum space will feature full length articles and shorter pieces giving a quick overview of innovative ideas that have been put into practice.
Commenting on the launch of Mindful Forum, MHPF Chief Executive Dr Ian McPherson said:
‘There is a lot of innovation in the voluntary sector that does not always get the profile it deserves. MHPF wants to help these ideas and practices be disseminated more rapidly so that they can be replicated and built on to help members offer better services and value in these challenging times.’
Mindful Forum readers are actively encouraged to engage through providing feedback to the articles and ‘bright ideas’ featured – or by making a submission of their own. This can be in response to specific pieces of work being carried out by organisations or any topic of interest related to mental health. MHPF welcomes input from all interested people, from service users to professionals.
As the representative body for voluntary sector mental health provider organisations operating across England our aim is to improve the range and quality of mental health services by working to increase the involvement of the voluntary and community sector in service delivery.
Mindful Forum will contribute to this goal by providing a means for a dialogue to take place and for all parties to demonstrate views for service improvement. Initial articles and bright ideas include:
- Service user and professional experiences of psychological therapies
- Effective client involvement – developing organisational guidance
- The Wellbeing Compass
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- MHPF is the representative body for mental health organisations working across England. For more information and a list of our members visit www.mhpf.org.uk
- Visit Mindful Forum at www.mindfulforum-mhpf.org.uk and join the discussion
Law Commission calls for far-reaching reform of adult social care law
The Law Commission has published a landmark report this week on adult social care law which proposes the creation of a new national system setting out the basic support that all local authorities in England and Wales must offer. The report also recommends that assessments of individuals and their carers should be simplified and that the NHS should work more closely with local authorities.
Care Services Minister Paul Burstow welcomed the report saying: ' We will take this work together with the recommendations of the independent Commission on the Funding of Care and Support in the summer to set out comprehensive reform in our Care and Support White Paper.'
Mental Health Awareness Week 2011: 23 - 30 May
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Every year the Mental Health Foundation works with the public and organisations across the UK to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing.
This year, our year-long campaign is Sleep and this month sees the centrepiece of the campaign during Mental Health Awareness Week.
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NEW INFORMATION SOURCE.....
For all those interested in mental health and the services available - the Mental Health Providers Forum have introduced a new information tool in the Lightbox.
The forum is the representative body for voluntary sector mental health organisations working across England and are involved in influencing both national and regional mental health strategies. Imagine joined the Forum after its launch in December 2005.
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Lightbox Campaign and MHPF member input.....
Mental Health Providers Forum (MHPF) has launched a new campaign promoting the ability and contribution of voluntary sector organisations in supporting and delivering a broad range of mental health services.
Lightbox, which was launched on 11 April, will provide information to commissioners and GP Leads that will support them to meet the needs of their local population. It will ensure that when it comes to mental health services those in leadership roles are properly informed to commission services that make a difference.
You can contact Onye Imonioro: o.imonioro@mhpf.org.uk for more information. We will also shortly be sending around more detailed information on the various ways that your organisation can become actively involved in the campaign.
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In a letter sent out by Dr Ian McPherson, MHPF has invited members to input to the NHS Future Forum – the body set up to lead the Government’s listening exercise on the proposed NHS modernisation.
A reminder that you can feed your observations and comments on the themes set out by the NHS FF by sending your views, by 9th May, to Paul Farmer CE who has been invited to join the Forum, This will enable Paul Farmer to get sight of your views as quickly as possible and for MHPF to put together an overview of the key messages to share with members.
Feedback, to be copied to info@mhf.org.uk, may be on any of the themes but we envisage the sector will be most interested in the issue of Choice and competition – addressing the following questions:
o Which are the types of services where choice of provider is most likely to improve quality?
o What is the best way to ensure a level playing field between the different kinds of provider who could be involved?
o What else can be done to make patient choice a reality?
(An oversight of the themes being addressed by the NHS FF is given below, with a broad outline of some of the key concerns.)
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· Accountability and patients
This addresses the move away from the current "top-down" management structure of the NHS to an emphasis on locally run services delivered by GP Consortia. Whilst delivery led by local need should ensure a more responsive health care system there is concern: about the ability of GPs to act independently as commissioners; and a worsening of the whole ‘postcode lottery’ access to health care conundrum.
· Choice and competition
Under current reforms, including Any Willing Provider, the onus is on competition between providers as the incentive to: stop complacency; and act as the driver for care providers to deliver quality care for patients. A key concern is that whilst competition will leave the strongest providers standing – or the most able to whether the financial storm through high volumn delivery of services – it will drive down the overall quality and range of care being provided.
Where does the voluntary sector fit into this equation when private sector providers with the scale of their resources driving are able to drive down ‘unit cost’? And where do the small specialist providers fit into the equation? In effect this could mean that whilst there is more competition amongst providers, in real terms there is less choice for service clients.
· Advice and leadership
With the planned abolition of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and transfer of service commissioning to locality based GP commissioners, the NHS leadership structures are gong through a radical overhaul. In short, with the NHS Commissioning Board at the helm, at the ground level decision making powers transfer to doctors – and thus an anticipated reduction in bureaucracy.
Patients will have access to more information about the performance of local services which will feed into decision making as to where they are treated and how they can use their personal budgets. However, the issues being flagged up: question the capacity of GPs to manage commissioning as well as deliver care; and question the emphasis being put on doctors, possibly at the expense of the expertise of other key categories of staff within the health care system and stakeholders outside the NHS whom GP may not traditionally have a commissioning relationship with.
· Education and training
Health Education England (HEE) is the new board being put in set up to replace the current deaneries and professional advisory bodies for allied health professionals (and nursing and midwifery). As such, under current reforms, management and maintenance of standards will transfer to HEE. There is concern that the proposals for the HEE being put forward do not clearly set out how the HEE will carry out the full scope of its responsibilities. This could create a potential knock on effect on the quality of education and further down the line a drop in professional expertise and the quality of patient care.
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Count Me In Census
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published the Count me in census. Established as part of the Governments five-year Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health programme (DRE) the census records the inpatient experience of black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in inpatient care (in the NHS private the sector, and on community treatment orders).
A number of organisations including Mind and the Mental Health Foundation have expressed deep concern about the alarming lack of improvements to service delivery which have seen the rates of admission for BME communities, detention under the Mental Health Act and rate of seclusion go unchanged. Figures show that admission ratios for people from black and mixed black backgrounds, especially men, still remain over the national average (up to eight times higher in some communities).
Worryingly 77% of female and 61% of male mental health inpatients are still not accommodated in designated single-sex wards. The NHS Operating Framework for 2011-2012 confirmed that all providers of NHS funded care are expected to eliminate mixed-sex. It has also
accommodation, except where it is in the overall best interest of the patients. It has also announced fines of £250 for each breach of mixed sex accommodation as way of tacking the issue – steps that it’s hoped will hasten the full implementation of what has been government policy since 2005.
Download results of the ‘Count me in’ census
Liverpool and Sefton Age Concern group goes independent
This Merseyside charity has broken away from its national organisation, saying it meets local needs better alone. Liverpool and Sefton Age Concern has formed an independent charity, cutting its links with Age UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-12756441
Imagine
THE DIGNITY CHALLENGE
As an Imagine employee you are expected to provide high-quality services that respect people’s dignity. This means you must:
1. Have zero tolerance to abuse
2. Support people with the same respect you would want for yourself or a member of your family
3. Treat each person as an individual by offering a personalized service
4. Enable people to maintain the maximum possible level of independence, choice and control
5. Listen and support people to express their needs and wants
6. Respect people’s right to privacy
7. Ensure people feel able to complain without fear
8. Engage with family members and carers as care partners
9. Assist people to maintain confidence and positive self-esteem
10. Act to alleviate people’s loneliness and isolation
Dignity Action Day, a host of ideas and details of what other people are doing in celebration of this can be found alongside resource packs to download on the two links below
Information: http://www.dignityincare.org.uk/DAD/
Resource Pack: http://www.dignityincare.org.uk/DAD/About/
No health without mental health
Last modified date: 2 February 2011
The cross-Government Mental Health Outcomes Strategy was launched today.
The strategy’s theme is that mental health is everyone’s business, whether employers, education, third sector or criminal justice and it takes a life course approach covering children and young people, adults to older people, in order to:
- improve the mental health and wellbeing of the population and keep people well, and
- improve outcomes for people with mental health problems through high quality services that are equally accessible to all.
The aim is to mainstream mental health so that it becomes as important to people as their physical health.
Key to reducing the estimated £105 billion annual cost of mental ill-health to the economy is to intervene early to stop problems developing and to prevent illness through public mental health and well-being actions across the board. Stakeholder groups are supporting the strategy through an agreed ‘Call to action’.
It will enable more decisions to be taken locally, with people having more choice and information to meet their individual needs.
The Imagine team, and their supporters have just completed the 150 foot abseil down Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.
A huge well done to everyone who participated. And a big thank you to everyone for their support.
It was great to see the team laughing and cheering each other on. Clearly - despite nerves - a great time was had by all.
A special thanks to Paul Edwards for organising the event.
Iain Brodie Browne, Chief Executive
…more to follow
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