Rob Sainsbury said creating new facilities, recruiting more staff, and increasing community care were at the top of his to do list during 2019 although he acknowledged the cost of doing so would be ‘considerable’.
Details of a new standalone mental-health facility have yet to be announced, after previous proposals outlined by the former Health Minister to build a £45 million centre at Overdale were shelved until the ongoing debate over the location of the new hospital is resolved.
But Mr Sainsbury said delaying mental-health improvements was not an option, describing it as ‘a pressing need’.
He said: ‘We know we need to start developing and building our services to really have a greater focus on crisis prevention, more community support, and more wrap-around services.
‘We need more therapy-type intervention in mental health and we need our facilities to start to modernise to deliver the care. For us the focus is going to start to shift. We’re saying there’s no health without mental health. We want parity of esteem between physical and mental health. Our commitment in 2019 is to deliver that parity.’
In the past few weeks four new mental-health consultants have been recruited, but the mental-health service remains the health area with the most vacancies. Mr Sainsbury said reforms to services could help attract workers from the UK and other jurisdictions.
Overdale was previously named as a site for a bespoke mental-health unit, and Mr Sainsbury said it remained an option.
‘We need a different facility for our mental-health services,’ he said. ‘I think it would be good if we could align that to the Future Hospital. It doesn’t have to be on the same site. There are different views. There are some people who need shared care. They may have mental-health issues and a physical issue so you need them to be in the acute hospital.
‘There are some parts of mental-health pathways where you wouldn’t want them to be in that environment. So for me, it could be co-location, it could be Overdale. Proximity might help.’
He said his intention was to tackle the recruitment shortfall by the end of 2019, and have better services for those facing a mental-health emergency.
‘I’d like, by the end of 2019, to have addressed the staffing deficit,’ he said. ‘I’d have liked us to have developed a new crisis prevention service. I’d also like more of the care happening in the community rather than bed-based in institutions.’
When asked how he would pay for it, he said: ‘We know that mental health is the area we have to focus into. We are committed to supporting the cost of the crisis prevention and intervention service which could be considerable.’
