Connecting Community Mental Health Support_v_0.1

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Strengthening Integration in the Mental Healthcare System: Key Stakeholders’ and Service Users’ Perspectives

  • IRAS ID

    311953

  • Contact name

    Judi Kidger

  • Contact email

    judi.kidger@bristol.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Bristol, Research Governance Team, Research & Enterprise Division

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    N/A, N/A

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 5 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    The NHS Community Mental Health Framework for Adults and Older Adults (2019) sets out a vision for place-based mental health support which integrates primary and secondary mental health services, public health, social care, and voluntary community and social enterprise support. However, many service users report a lack of integration across current services, and resultant difficulty accessing the support they need in a timely manner.

    This study aims to inform how to make different mental healthcare services work better together to improve mental health and reduce mental health inequalities. We will invite service users, advocates, service providers and system leaders from two areas, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG), and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw (SYB), to attend interviews and a series of workshops. BNSSG and SYB are Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). Potential participants will be eligible to participate if they are adults, aged 18 years or above, and have either accessed or provide mental health services in BNSSG or SYB.

    In the first workshops, we will ask participants to work in groups to suggest how connections between different mental health services can be improved. The second workshops will give participants the opportunity to refine ideas from the first workshops and produce recommendations for change. Stakeholders (i.e., service providers, policy makers and commissioners) will create action plans based on these recommendations in an action planning meeting. Each workshop will last around 2 hours.

    The interviews, lasting about 1 hour, will investigate participants’ experiences and views of integrated mental healthcare, barriers and facilitators to integration, and improvements that can be made to create a more integrated system, and reduce health inequalities.

    This study will run from October 2022 until March 2024, and is funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Three Research Schools Mental Health Funding

  • REC name

    London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    22/LO/0835

  • Date of REC Opinion

    22 Dec 2022

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion