Agenda item

This item gives an overview of how the Council works in partnership with the Integrated Care Board and the West London Trust to develop and improve mental health services for children and young people, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, through co-production with young people.

Henry Leak (NHS North West London) presented the report that set out the range of co-production activity undertaken in relation to developing emotional wellbeing and mental health provision for young people and how that feedback was reflected in the way services were delivered

Councillor Lucy Richardson asked different services and organisations like MIND, CAMHS, and schools communicated to avoid repetition. Henry Leak said the mental health partnership group brought all partners together to create relationships, facilitate information sharing, and ensure alignment on service creation and delivery.

Councillor Richardson asked if all of the available services were clearly set out online. Henry Leak said they were, but they were testing a new template, similar to the Local Offer, with Parentsactive and other service users.

Councillor Daryl Brown asked if schools taught children about emotional intelligence and how to regulate their emotions. Peter Haylock (Operational Director for Education and SEND) explained that most schools would have Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) classes. There was also a traded offer of additional support that schools could buy into. Amana Gordon (Operational Director, Children and Young People’s Service) noted that the Attachment Aware Schools Programme had launched recently, which aimed to ensure schools created the right environment for children to self-regulate. Members requested more information and she agreed to share an article from the staff newsletter covering the programme.

ACTION: Amana Gordon

Councillor Aliya Afzal-Khan asked how the effectiveness of mental health provision was measured and what mechanisms were in place to drive improvement. Henry Leak said they monitored uptake of services. Councillor Afzal-Khan said it would be useful to see data on how many people were being helped and the measurements for effectiveness.

Nandini Ganesh asked if the providers listed in Appendix 1 of the report were also suitable for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and if they dealt with behaviour issues. Henry Leak said not all of the providers did. They would look for support from the inclusion service and CAHMS where necessary. Nandini Ganesh asked if special schools had access to mental health services. Peter Haylock said they had the same opportunities and used the services most effective to them.

Eleanor Allen asked to what degree mental health affected poor attendance at school. Henry Leak said mental health did have an impact on school attendance and they had an attendance team that worked with schools on that. There was also a toolkit for schools around emotionally based reasons for not attending.

Nadia Taylor noted she was involved in an applied research project on mental health and neurodiversity at Imperial, and asked if schools would be willing to engage with the project. Peter Haylock said he thought schools would be keen to be involved. They agreed to discuss it further after the meeting.

ACTION: Nadia Taylor / Peter Haylock

Nandini Ganesh asked about emergency mental health support which was a common problem for Parentsactive parents. Henry Leak said emergency support was a complex area. There was a dynamic support register system in place. If someone was at risk they were put on the register, partners would then discuss what could be done to stop further deterioration.

The Chair asked if the right data was being collected across the various organisations and services and how sophisticated the information flow was. She asked if it was responsive to residents’ needs. Henry Leak said there was a system covering North West London called WSIC or ‘Whole Systems Integrated Care’. WSIC collated data from GPs, acute Trusts, adult social care and was used to track anomalies like groups that weren’t accessing care where one would expect. He said it was still early days for population health data, but now it was in place and being built on and would be a key focus for future work.

The Chair asked if Council colleagues felt they had access to the right data. Sarah Bright (Assistant Director, Commissioning) said they hadn’t had sight of the WSIC data and would like to explore that. The Chair discussed how best to progress the data issue. She saw value in improving data sharing between the Council and the NHS and suggested the Council’s Business Intelligence team could help the NHS evaluate investment and service effectiveness. She also highlighted co-production as an area where the Council could support NHS North West London to realise a common goal.

Sarah Bright noted that officers had a working group with the ICS and they could look at sharing data in a systemic way. There was also a role for Public Health regarding the JSNA. Henry Leak noted that Public Health already had access to WSIC data. He said work was ongoing to ensure there were robust data agreements in place which were being trialling in some areas.

ACTION: Sarah Bright / working group to progress data sharing agreement

RESOLVED

1. That the Committee noted the ongoing work and achievements to date.