Mental Health contingency plans take effect

WEDNESDAY, 1 FEBRUARY, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Mental health contingency
plans take effect

The General Adult Psychiatry Inpatient Service in Angus and the out-of-hours Crisis Response Service in Perth & Kinross have started to transition to the Carseview Centre in Dundee from today (1 February) .

A shortage of junior doctors in Scotland and a change to the number of doctors available to NHS Tayside resulted in doctors and consultants from NHS Tayside, alongside Perth & Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership which is responsible for managing inpatient mental health services across Tayside, having to make a decision to move to a contingency plan for both the adult inpatient service and the crisis response service.

This interim plan sees the Mulberry ward at Susan Carnegie Centre and the out-of-hours crisis response assessment currently provided in Murray Royal Hospital move to the Carseview Centre in Dundee from today.

Nine patients from Mulberry ward transferred to Carseview today, accompanied by staff from Mulberry who will now care for their own patients at Carseview. There is additional ward space within Carseview for patients moving from Mulberry and staff from Mulberry will move with their patients to ensure continuity of clinical care.

NHS Tayside Medical Director Professor Andrew Russell said, “Medical, nursing and management teams have been working really hard over the past few weeks to ensure that this interim move is as smooth and safe as possible for everyone involved.

“I would like to pay tribute to all our staff who have put patients first at all times and who have gone above and beyond to make sure patients will continue to receive the highest standards of care.

Robert Packham, Chief Officer of Perth & Kinross Health & Social Care Partnership, added, “The decision to move the Mulberry ward on an interim basis was taken based on the many local and regional mental health services provided in Dundee and Perth & Kinross. Junior doctors are crucial to providing a whole range of mental health services in these areas both in and out of hours, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, learning disability services, Psychiatry of Old Age and regional secure care clinic services. This means that the majority of our junior doctors are centred around Dundee and Perth.

“We can now ensure that the limited number of junior doctors we have are able to care for the whole range of Tayside patients in the safest and most appropriate environments.

“We understand that this decision will create practical difficulties where people need to travel and that the change will cause some concerns for patients and their families but we will never compromise the safety of our patients and we simply do not have the right level of medical cover at this time. We thank all our patients and their families for their understanding and I can assure them that people across Angus, Dundee and Perth & Kinross will still have access to safe and effective mental health and care services.”

Notes to editors

    • From the beginning of February 2017, only 18.6 whole-time equivalent junior doctors from a requirement of 31 will be available to NHS Tayside in its mental health services, making it impossible to sustain safe services across three sites.

    • This shortage of junior doctors means that the contingency plans for mental health will start to be safely implemented from 1 February.

    GAP inpatient services are currently provided across three sites - Mulberry ward at the Susan Carnegie Centre in Angus, Moredun ward in Murray Royal Hospital, Perth, and two wards in the Carseview Centre in Dundee. The Crisis Response assessment is currently provided in Murray Royal Hospital and Carseview.

    To provide a safe level of care for patients, GAP inpatient services will be provided from two sites, Carseview and Murray Royal Hospital. This will see an interim move of the Mulberry ward to Carseview, with the transition starting on 1 February

    Mental health services will continue to be provided from the Susan Carnegie Centre as this interim move does not affect the Rowan and Willow wards, which care for Psychiatry of Old Age patients. Local consultants from the Mulberry ward are also looking at how the local community mental health models of care in Angus can be enhanced during this interim period.

    The Crisis Response Service currently based at Murray Royal will transfer to Carseview.  There are no changes to services provided in hours or to the provision of intensive home treatment in Perth and Kinross.  

    The out-of-hours assessments will transfer to the Carseview Centre between 3pm and 9am weekdays and at weekends.

    This contingency plan to respond to a staffing shortage does not impact on the ongoing Mental Health Service Redesign Transformation Programme, which is undertaking a review of Adult Mental Health Inpatient Services and Learning Disability Inpatient Services across Tayside. This programme will continue to look at a long-term sustainable model of care for adult mental health inpatient services. The programme team is currently gathering the necessary clinical, workforce and financial information for each of the top four options in order to identify a preferred option. This will be presented to NHS Tayside and Health and Social Care Partnership Boards over February and March 2017 to seek agreement for a

    three-month period of wider stakeholder consultation on any preferred option.

Contact:

NHS Tayside Communications
(01382) 424138

1 February 2017