Supporting mental health in the south west

South West Mental Health Programme - 2022/2023

The HEE south west mental health team aims to improve patient access, outcomes and experiences whilst reducing the length of stay referral, treatment, and recovery times as well as reducing out-of-area placements. Our workforce long-term plan will support and contribute to these outcomes by impacting the education, training, and transformation of the mental health workforce. It supports the:

• Expansion of the workforce by increasing the numbers in training to improve access.
• Upskilling of the workforce to enable a wider choice of treatment, increase access and allow treatment to be offered closer to home.
• Development of leadership, new roles and new ways of working to further facilitate the Long-Term Plan ambitions.

The plan is regularly reviewed to ensure delivery and meeting current demand.

Meet the team

Rachel Niven, Mental Health Programme Lead.

Rachel leads the Mental Health programme for HEE in the south west with specific responsibility for commissioning of training programmes and management of projects aligned to New Ways of Working in Mental Health (including Physician Associates, Multi-professional Approved Clinicians and Peer support workers) and to those aligned with Improving Access to Psychological Therapies.

Christina Doncom, Associate Workforce Transformation Lead for Children and Young People’s Mental Health Learning Disabilities and Autism, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health.

Christina leads the extensive Children and Young People Mental Health agenda, which includes the range of training programmes that are provided each year, primarily to deliver the Long-Term Plan ambitions, but also to meet emerging priorities such as support for Eating Disorders Services. For the Learning Disability and Autism area, the priority is building capacity and capability across Integrated Care Boards for the delivery of the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training for Learning Disabilities and Autism for the whole workforce. For Perinatal and Infant Mental Health, the principal work stream is managing the Regional Training Fund across services, to support the achievement of the Long-Term Plan ambitions.

Steph Dodds, Mental Health Crisis Clinical Fellow, Mental Health Crisis Workforce.

The main aspect of Steph’s role is understanding our diverse workforce and their training and developing needs, including the NHS crisis services, the voluntary sector and the emergency services. There are a number of deliverables to this fellowship project, including a regional study and a full-length report which will soon be available, alongside data packs which have been shared with stakeholders. There is also a bi-monthly regional mental health crisis workforce forum which aids shared learning, collaboration and best practice.

Carly Atkinson, AHP Clinical Fellow for Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism, AHP Workforce in Mental Health Services.

Carly’s role aims to increase awareness and understanding of the role and value of AHPs within mental health, learning disability and autism (MH/LDA) services. Carly is working to understand the training needs of AHP students’ pre-registration and thinking about preceptorship and longer-term training needs when qualified. Ongoing deliverables include our co-produced ‘AHP Student Roadshow’ project focusing on careers in mental healthcare for pre-registration student AHPs, disseminating the findings of our AHPs in Mental Health workforce survey, and supporting systems with a better understanding of new ways of working for AHPs within MH/LDA.

Sunday Adekanye, South West Community Mental Health Programme Lead, Adult Community Mental Health.

Sunday leads Psychological Therapies for people living with Severe Mental health Problems (PT SMHP) programme as an Upskilling route and the Mental Health Wellbeing Practitioner programme as a supply route. Sunday’s overall objective is to support the national ambition of improving access to psychological therapies.

Suzanne Azer, Clinical Lead and Programme Manager, Psychological Professions Network south west.

Suzanne is the clinical lead and programme manager of the Psychological Professions Network SW which aims to give psychological professionals a unified voice. Suzanne also oversees the Psychological Profession Network, South West workplan, including event planning and leads on several areas such as the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and Expert by Experience involvement developments in the Psychological Profession Network, South West.

Matt Freeman, Programme Administrator.

Matt works across the Mental health workstreams, supporting the Programme Leads. Matt’s responsibility is to support the team with administrative and logistical processes. Additionally, Matt supports Programme leads in wider projects.

Danielle Mason, Programme Officer, Mental Health workstreams.

Danielle supports Programme Leads along with business management, reporting and finance relating to our Mental Health programmes.

Patrick Ezeani, Project Support Officer, Communications Programmes Support.

Patrick supports workstream leads in the delivery of various projects and the implementation of planned deliverables, in accordance with the agreed priorities of the team. Patrick also works closely with the Communications and Engagement Team and Project teams to develop, edit, and review a variety of presentations for internal and external communications.

You can contact our team at mentalhealth.sw@hee.nhs.uk for further information.