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Community Mental Health Teams
There are three community mental health teams in Wirral. They are managed jointly by Wirral Department of Adult Social Services and Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust. Community Mental Health Teams are multidisciplinary and are made up of Care Co-ordinators (who could be Community Psychiatric Nurses or Social Workers), Occupational Therapists, clinical psychologists and Support Workers.
Who is the Service For?
Adults aged between 18 and 65 with the full range of mental health needs. The CMHT supports two groups of people:
- Most patients treated by the CMHT will have time limited disorders and be referred back to their GPs after a period of weeks or months when their condition has improved.
- A substantial minority, however, will remain with the team for ongoing treatment, care and monitoring for periods of several years. They will include people needing ongoing specialist care for:
- Severe and persistent mental disorders associated with significant disability, predominantly psychoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
- Longer term disorders of lesser severity but which are characterised by poor treatment adherence requiring proactive follow up.
- Any disorder where there is significant risk of self harm or harm to others (e.g. acute depression) or where the level of support required exceeds that which a primary care team could offer (e.g. chronic anorexia nervosa).
- Disorders requiring skilled or intensive treatments (e.g. CBT, vocational rehabilitation, medication maintenance requiring blood tests) not available in primary care.
- Complex problems of management and engagement such as presented by people requiring interventions under the Mental Health Act (1983), except where these have been accepted by an assertive outreach team.
- Severe disorders of personality where these can be shown to benefit by continued contact and support except where these have been accepted by an assertive outreach team or a specialised personality disorder team where there is one.
The CMHT aims to:
- Provide support and advice to primary care services such as GPs to support local care;
- Provide prompt and expert assessment of mental health needs;
- Provide effective, evidence based treatments to reduce and shorten distress and suffering;
- Ensure that inappropriate or unnecessary treatments are avoided.
- Establish a detailed understanding of all local resources relevant to support of individuals with mental health needs and promote effective interagency working.
- Assist people who use services and their carers in accessing such support, both to reduce distress but also to maximise personal development and fulfilment.
- Provide advice and support to people who use services, their families and carers.
- Gain a detailed understanding of the local population, its mental health needs and priorities, and provide a service that is sensitive to this, and religious and gender needs.
- Provide a culturally competent service, including ready access to interpreter services for minority languages and British Sign Language.