Mental Health Services Consultation

This is toupdate you on the next steps in relation to the recent public consultation regarding proposals to redesign adult and older people's specialist mental health services in Eastern Cheshire, South Cheshire and Vale Royal.

These important services serve a population of 480,000. At the very heart of what we are aiming to achieve through our proposals is to improve the health and wellbeing of people with severe mental health problems. There is an absolute commitment to have available to our local populations services and support that enable our patients "to thrive, not just to survive."

We would like to thank everyone who either took part in or supported the delivery of our three-month public consultation. We ran a very comprehensive consultation process. All 7,000 patients across Eastern Cheshire, South Cheshire and Vale Royal who are currently supported by or accessing adult and older people's specialist mental health services received a personal copy of the consultation document. We held seven public engagement consultation meetings and 26 community events with over 700 attendees. We were also successful in gaining widespread print and social media coverage which helped to further encourage people to #JoinTheConversation.

All of the feedback that was received throughout the consultation period has been analysed independently. Given the breadth and depth of feedback from patients, the public and organisations, it is vital that we now have time to fully consider this before making any decisions. As such, no decision has been made or will be made until later this year.

The full consultation report will be made publicly available in early September on the websites of each Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and we will also attend the local authority's health scrutiny meeting to present the findings of the consultation. A decision-making business case will then be prepared and brought to a meeting in public of the three CCGs before the end of the year when a decision will be made with regards how to progress.

We will continue to keep patients and the wider public informed of our next steps.

Yours sincerely,

Jerry Hawker

Chief Officer, NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG

Clare Watson

Chief Officer, NHS South Cheshire CCG and NHS Vale Royal CCG

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