News

Health and care professionals from statutory and voluntary sectors, service providers and commissioners attended a whole systems workshop on Tuesday 1 May.

This focused on developing innovative solutions to challenges in patient journeys including reducing the use of out of area beds.

The Mental Health System Flow event was developed and organised by the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (Yorkshire & Humber AHSN) and sponsored by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals (U.K.) Ltd.

Around 50 delegates representing organisations involved in mental health care services across West Yorkshire heard presentations, reviewed relevant data and took part in round table discussions aimed at drawing out the best ideas that will now be developed into action plans to improve patient flow and experience.

The key speakers were:

• Emma Fraser, Programme Director (Mental Health), Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust
• Salma Yasmeen, Director of Strategy for the South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust (SWYPFT)
• Sue Barton, Deputy Director of Strategy and Change, SWYPFT
• Dr Arasu Kuppuswarmy, Clinical Lead, SWYPFT
• Professor Mohammed A Mohammed, Professor of Quality and Effectiveness in Healthcare, Bradford University
• John Newsome, Practice Governance Coach, SWYPFT

The round table work was facilitated by Olivia Shaw from Visions4Health.

Ideas and recommendations that resulted from the round table work will now be pulled into action plans for future implementation.

Feedback from the event included:

“Good to see service providers and commissioners and public health come together and hopefully be able to develop a consensus around what we can all focus on.”

“Events like this give us the opportunity to look at the issues from a wider perspective – they encourage us to look at the system as a whole, which is really useful.”

“Looking at the whole system and talking to other people at events like this gives a real insight into what everybody else is doing.”

“There’s been lots of energy in the room and some really good ideas have been suggested that we can take forward.”