Agenda item

To provide an update on Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Collaborative  and Surrey County Council’s  Children and Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Commissioning Strategy. This commissioning strategy was presented to the board in June; this report highlights progress and next steps.

Witnesses:

Karina Ajayi, (Commissioner, Surrey County Council)

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Commissioner introduced the update on the joint emotional wellbeing and mental health commissioning strategy for children and young people. The strategy highlighted a number of gaps which commissioners seek to address over the course of the strategy. A number of the gaps were linked to recommisioning work with CAMHS. Referring to the table from pages 17-19, the Commissioner gave examples of where gaps had been identified and the action that would be taken to address these. It was further explained that the main themes from the engagement would along with gaps identified in the strategy be used to determine an options paper that would be taken to the Governing bodies of all of the CCGs in Surrey.

2.    It was queried whether the model for the joint emotional wellbeing and mental health commissioning strategy for children and young people would be the same for all six CCG’s. There was some concern for extending the age range for children and young people’s mental health support to 25. It was suggested that although there was a desire to make the model for the strategy the same across all six CCG’s, it was recognised that in some cases extending the age range would not be suitable.

3.    It was queried how the gaps listed in the strategy would be addressed and if an outcomes focused action plan would be put in place.

4.     A member commented on the need for ‘Young Carers’ to be recognised and addressed in the Equality Impact Assessment document.

5.    The Commissioner stated that once an options paper had been developed an action plan would also be put in place. The service recognised that the current level of funding was not enough and a proposal to increase this would be taken to the CCG governing bodies.

6.    A workshop has been organised in December to look at service specifications and identify what outcomes the service wants to achieve going forward. As part of the strategy implementation, someone had been taken on to work with care leavers.

7.    A member asked for examples of where there had been successful progress in addressing gaps in the strategy. The Commissioner stated that she would provide this information to the board. 

8.    It was stated the reason for raising the age range to 25 had been from evidence from a report which recommended extending the age range.

9.    The Chairman stated on the need for services for children and young people’s wellbeing and mental health services to be individual specific rather than age specific.

10.  Work had been undertaken with the voluntary sector to understand how better to address the mental health needs of residents. The importance of transition from children to adult mental health services was recognised as a key approach going forward.

11.  Members commented on the good work that had been done to address children and young people’s mental health concerns. 

Resolved:

The health and wellbeing board agreed and endorsed the following next steps of the strategy-

a)    That the main themes from the engagement will along with gaps identified in the strategy be used to determine an options paper for a future model of care

b)    That this paper will be taken to the Governing bodies of all of the CCGs in Surrey to help define the model of care to be procured subject to funding.

c)    That the procurement exercise will be completed by September 2015.

d)    That progress on this joint commissioning strategy will be reported back to the Surrey Health and Wellbeing Board as part of the wider Children and Young People’s priority update in April 2015. This will specifically include the action plan for the joint emotional wellbeing and mental health commissioning strategy, including timescales where work cannot be completed/or will take longer to complete.

·         That the Commissioner send to the board examples of where there had been successful progress in addressing gaps in the strategy.