Patients under the care of Community Mental Health Teams at North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust are being supported with a new peer recovery coach service from Changes Health and Wellbeing.
The Stoke-on-Trent based charity Changes Health and Wellbeing has been appointed by the NHS Trust to manage and deliver the peer recovery coach service as part of the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme, a new proactive model of community-based mental health care which is currently being embedded across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Five Community Mental Health Peer Recovery Coaches have been recruited to the Trust’s Community Mental Health Teams offer.
Sarah Newton, Senior Service Manager for Transformation, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “The vision of the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme is that we work in collaboration with partners, such as with organisations in the VCSE (Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise) sector, to create mental health services that are inclusive, accessible, values people as they are and are responsive to their needs.
“The Community Mental Health Peer Recovery Coaches will use their lived experience and other skills to support service users in their communities to keep well throughout their recovery journeys. We are delighted that Changes Health and Wellbeing has been appointed to deliver this service for the transformation programme following a competitive tendering process across the VCSE sector in North Staffordshire.”
Dave Wheat, CEO, Changes Health and Wellbeing, said: “Changes Peer Recovery Coaches is working alongside Community Mental Health Teams to support the recovery of those experiencing severe mental illness – through sharing their personal experience of mental illness in a way that inspires hope; focusing on what is ‘strong, not what is wrong’; and walking alongside service users throughout their recovery journey”.
The three-year Community Mental Health Transformation Programme, taking place between 2021 – 2024 across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, supports the priorities set out within the NHS Long Term Plan and will be delivered across 24 PCNs (Primary Care Networks) in the region. A new proactive model of community-based mental health care, based within PCNs, will be created with mental health NHS trusts working in partnership with GPs, commissioners, local authorities and voluntary and community organisations – alongside people with lived experience, their families and carers.
The work will focus on serious mental illness, with work programmes focusing in particular on transforming personality disorder, eating disorders and community rehabilitation for adults. North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust is the NHS trust delivery partner for North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, with Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust delivering across South Staffordshire.
To find out more about the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme, please visit https://www.twbstaffsandstoke.org.uk/about-us/our-work/mental-health/adult-community-mental-health-transformation
