Learn more about how we provide safe, quality care and the best experience for people with mental health issues - part of the Local Account Summary.
As we work towards developing our vision to create thriving communities where people can prosper, we need to offer accessible quality mental health care and support.
Torbay Older Person Mental Health (OPMH) service ensures we provide our statutory social care functions, alongside our partners Devon Partnership NHS Trust which provides community mental health services.
We work with older people and their families and carers who are experiencing complex mental health difficulties including dementia. The service prides itself on actively challenging perceptions of older age, oppression, and discrimination. Social workers have expertise in areas of assessment, safeguarding, individual and family therapeutic intervention.
Our work is underpinned by legislative frameworks (the Care Act 2014, the Mental Health Act 1983/2007, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 etc.), which ensure evidence-based and proportionate interventions in the lives of the people we support.
We work with our partners to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to integrated care, improved communication, and timely joint visits to people who need our services. We work with those who have dementia as well as those with life-long mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
We work hard to involve families in assessments and decision making from the start. We have a dedicated carer support worker who can come alongside loved ones with knowledge and compassion at critical times. Our team of social workers and community care workers understand the legal aspect of caring for their loved ones when they can no longer make decisions for themselves and help families through this.
We are creative in care planning recognising that everyone is an individual and one size doesn’t fit all. We believe people have the right to take risks even in older age and we champion people’s rights to live independently for as long as possible in their own homes and will help find specialist carers to achieve this.
We are skilled in safeguarding older people from those who may not have their best interests at heart.
We are skilled practitioners who have a wealth of expertise and experience in older age mental disorders. We support and work collaboratively with our social care colleagues through the link work scheme where specialist mental health support and joint working is offered to social work colleagues who are working with people who might be experiencing mental health difficulties. This also provides an opportunity to identify people who are in need of social care and would benefit from the care of the specialist mental health service.
We are proud to host student social workers, several of whom have stayed with as qualified workers. We have also supported social workers to complete specialist training as approved mental health professionals, which enhances our legal literacy and speedy access to enhanced expertise. We embrace a grow your own approach having supported several excellent community care workers through the Open University training programme to become qualified social workers. For the first time this year we are supporting one of our community care workers to undertake the social work apprenticeship programme.
CHESS provides support, advice, and guidance to care homes in Torbay. Its role is to support care homes to develop ways to improve the mental health and wellbeing of residents who have a diagnosis of dementia, and who present with the associated behavioural and psychological challenges (BPSD) of the condition.
CHESS is a multi-disciplinary team and develops collaborative partnerships across health and social care to enhance the quality of service and lived experiences of people living in care homes and experiencing the symptoms of BPSD.
In April 2022 a 12-month development project began to implement CHESS as a standalone service with dedicated staff members from Devon Partnership Trust and Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust. The trial was a success and has been established as the model of care for Torbay-based care home patients with dementia. The service has continued to evolve since then and is now an integral part of the Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) support framework for care homes.
During the past six months, following investment from NHS England, we have been able to focus on the provision of specialist dementia education to the care homes across south Devon in non-pharmacological approaches. This is in addition to our established reactive support and has given us the opportunity to explore proactive educational work to improve the quality of life for those with dementia residing in residential and nursing care environments. This has been very well received by the care homes and wider health and social care support network.
During the past year the Torbay mental health adult social care team started using the Torbay electronic system which aligns with our colleagues in other adult social care teams in the Bay to continue delivering a high-quality service.
The team has close links with the Bay’s social care teams, and community mental health team. It’s in a unique position to provide creative and collaborative services for people across the Bay, working on close links with housing providers, voluntary sector partners and community resources. Our aim is one of a strength-based approach, working with people to find solutions from a wide range of sources.
We have embarked on a journey to review and reimagine our mental health services with a view to developing stronger partnerships not only with our colleagues in secondary mental health services, but also with our social work colleagues in all the teams across Torbay to provide the best quality care for people who need our help.
The team includes mental health social workers and community support workers who assess eligible social care needs and plan support with people and their families and carers. We work with people to identify strengths in their networks and to access services and activities in their community that promote their independence, recovery, and social inclusion.
Where appropriate we work with our partners in the arranging support team to build packages of support to meet people’s unmet needs and regularly review the commissioned care, under statutory responsibilities.
We ensure section 117 aftercare rights of a person are reviewed and meet NHS policies, and any commissioned social care support is identified to support hospital discharge and reviewed in the community to ensure it continues to meet people’s aftercare needs.
Next year we will review and reimagine our mental health services, with the aim of developing stronger partnerships not only with our colleagues in secondary mental health services, but also with our social work colleagues in all the teams across Torbay,
Our aim is to provide the best quality service for people who may need our help and their families and carers, and to ensure that people with lived experience of mental health have a voice and play a key role in transforming the service.
I have been working with SW who is a vulnerable woman with a diagnosis of Autism and Dissociative Identity Disorder. SW experiences dissociative episodes which impacts on her daily living skills alongside her neurodiversity, and she requires support to live independently in the community.
“There are also safety issues linked to dissociative episodes, and I have needed to support the community team to manage the risks involved in these events which have included periods of being missing and alleged abuse during these times.
“I have worked with SW continually during the past two years and taken time to build the rapport and continuity with SW to develop her trusting relationship in me. This has enabled SW to feel safe and confident in my approach towards her and allow her to share the complexities of her life with her social worker to build a through and robust plan of care around her. Having had social workers in the past, it was difficult when she first met me to be able to put her trust in such a professional relationship, however taking the time to listen to her and validate her experiences has allowed us to work well together and it has been a pleasure to not only work alongside SW, but for me to learn as a practitioner first-hand what it involves to experience this condition.”
“Ele’s work with me started with a social care needs assessment. Since then she has responded to many changes in my circumstances with curiosity, compassion and (when needed) humour. When things have been stable and good, she’s left me to it. When things have changed and not been good, her response has always been proportionate. I enjoy working with her- it does feel like collaboration. I have nothing but praise (which is unusual for me) for the way that she has persevered to gain trust and help me live as independently and safely as possible. She understands my needs really well, but also my strengths. I’m a 3D person.”
Mental health services play a crucial role for supporting our community. The prevalence of mental health issues has surged since Covid-19 and world hostilities.
To deliver our vision to create thriving communities where people can prosper, we need to offer accessible quality mental health care and support. The Torbay approved mental health professional (AMHP) service is a vital part of this delivery of care
Our AMHPs are approved by Torbay Council to carry out certain duties under the Mental Health Act. A key function of the AMHP is considering and coordinating Mental Health Act Assessments (MHAAs). When satisfied that it is appropriate to do so, we are responsible for making applications for detention in hospital for assessment/treatment of mental disorder, alongside various other statutory responsibilities and duties, whilst adhering to the Guiding Principles set out in the MHA Code of Practice (DoH 2015). Torbay has a 24/7 access to an AMHP.
The convening of a Mental Health Act Assessment is complex and wholly dependent upon multi-agency working.
We are very proud of our emergency duty service (EDS) and the often-challenging work they undertake in a calm and effective manner.
A social worker is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Outside of normal working hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm), this role is undertaken by the emergency duty service. This is a small team consisting of six qualified social workers and five health and social care coordinators. There is always at least one social worker on duty.
In practice this can mean that we can find ourselves moving from dealing with someone’s concerns about a young baby, to arranging a support package for an older person who is near the end of their life, to undertaking a Mental Health Act assessment to determine whether someone needs admission to hospital. The role is therefore wide and varied, and being an emergency duty team means that we never know what situation will arise that needs us to offer support next. Our aims as a team are: