NEW £3M MODEL OF MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT AGREED IN SALFORD

A new citywide mental health service has been approved, anticipated to support an additional 5,000 people per year in Salford.

‘Living Well Salford’, jointly funded by NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust (GMMH) and Salford Primary Care Networks, is the name given to the new local system designed to meet the needs of adults with mental health problems that require more support than primary care can offer, but don’t meet the criteria for secondary care mental health services.

The Living Well model is a new offer of support co-designed by people with lived experience of mental health problems, it offers multi-disciplinary, multi-agency team support comprising Peer Workers, Recovery Workers and Mental Health Practitioners along with a range of other colleagues in areas such as psychology, psychiatry and housing.

GP Dr Nicholas Browne, clinical lead for Salford CCG, said: “Mental Health services have historically been underfunded and oversubscribed. Salford has led the way in investing more into mental health services than the nationally prescribed budget. Despite this, we all know more needs to be done.

“At last week's CCG Governing Body meeting, the business case for the roll out of the Living Well model across the city was agreed. This will be a £3m annual, recurring investment into an award-winning model which has shown great success in Broughton over the last three years.”

This new service has been developed as part of a national three-year programme to think differently about mental health support.

Over the past three years, Salford has worked with the Innovation Unit, a not-for-profit social enterprise to co-design the support offer.

Nick Webb, Director of Mental Health Innovation at Innovation Unit, said: “Innovation Unit is absolutely delighted with the news that Living Well Salford now has the backing it needs to spread person-centred support across the whole city. We have been privileged to have worked with such a brilliant team over the last three years.

He added “Their unwavering commitment to people, to lived experience, and to changing mental health services for the better is truly inspirational. We are excited to see what they do next!”

 A pilot has been operating across Broughton to test out the model which has shown tremendous benefits, focusing on people’s skills, aspirations, and experiences to build a different way of offering mental health support to the people of Salford.

The service is expected to be rolled out across the city during summer 2022.