Our Community Mental Health Teams provide assessment, diagnosis, treatment and follow up to people with severe and complex mental health conditions in a community setting.
Referral Routes
GP
Skilled Staff
Community Mental Health Teams consist of a range of skilled staff including:
• Consultant psychiatrists
• Approved Mental Health Practitioners
• Psychologists
• Social workers
• Occupational therapists
• Nurses
• Support workers and family support workers
The teams is multi-disciplinary, which means they have staff from a range of different health professions.
Treatment
Community mental health teams offer a number of treatments such as talking therapies, social interventions, and education. In addition they:
• Visit service users in a variety of places, including at home
• Support service users to be as independent as is possible
• Monitor medication
• Monitor service users in the outpatient department
Careplan
Patients with high level of needs are allocated a care coordinator who will work in partnership with the patient to develop a personalised careplan that meets the needs of the patient. The different parts of the careplan will include:
• Description of the problem
• Any risks involved
• The patient’s strengths
• What needs to be done to help the patient recover
• Who should be doing what
• The patient’s and the carer’s views – which will then be written down and given to all those involved including the patient and carers.
GP
Community mental health teams work closely with GPs. A letter is usually sent to the GP after every assessment describing the problem and providing advice about management. The GP is still responsible for the prescription of medication that may be advised by the psychiatrist. Unless admitted to hospital, the GP remains responsible of the rest of the medical care of the patient, though shared care of some problems are encouraged.