Rebound welcomed Rosie Penlinton, Health and Care, Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group,to our weekly meeting on Tuesday 10 September 2019.
She spoke about a project she is currently working on which is going to improve the Mental Health Crisis Service and, as part of this work, she explained that she wanted to speak to and get feedback from as many carers who have had contact with the service as possible.
Many of our members have had first hand experience of the Crisis team in the past, and spoke about the problems they encountered when trying to find some mental health support for family members they felt were “in crisis”. Shortage of staff and financial cuts were the main reasons given for the lack of support.
Rosie said she is trying to “join up” the services of Portsmouth and Hampshire and have a more streamlined service. She said she is sending us a link to complete an online questionnaire, but this hasn’t been received to date. We will publish the link when it becomes available.
One idea she has put forward is having a 111 phone line set up particularly for mental health calls but, at the moment, it is an electronic menu guiding you to the mental health option, not a specific initial contact.
The visit was helpful, though some thought that there were still issues not addressed. Hopefully we will be able to put these forward when we get the questionnaire.
