Celebrating World Mental Health Day 2019
10/10/19
Make today the day that you start talking to someone about your mental health.
Come on....let's talk.
Watch videoCongratulations to Devon and Cornwall Police and Livewell NHS!
04/10/19
Our newest team launched this afternoon in Plymouth.
Thanks to all involved in this project. Some incredibly passionate people wanting to change the narrative on high intensity mental health policing and patient care.
The next team launch is in Barnstaple, north Devon in 2 weeks!
SIM now live in all 9 London Mental Health Trusts!
28/09/19
We are delighted to announce that we have finally reached a significant project milestone. SIM is now operational in all 9 Mental Health trusts across London!
We are so, so grateful to all the staff from the 10 key organisations involved.
There are still many more teams to launch and each team within each borough will continue to build and grow but we wanted to publicly thank everyone involved, at the end of such a significant week for this mental health innovation.
Thank you - thank you - thank you
Paul-Kimberley-Julia-Rob-Ashley
Network National Team.
Congratulations to SIM London Project Managers for their award
26/09/19
There are so many passionate people behind the scenes ensuring that the SIM model of care is effectively delivered on the ground. No more so than these fine people: Jon Garrett (SLAM NHS), Rachel Matheson (OXLEAS NHS) and Magda Berge (SW London & St Georges NHS) who have been with us from the start in 2017 when we first got together to plan the first pathfinder sites across London that all launched in April 2018.
Last night this team and the Met Police MH Team won an NHS 'Partnership Award' for their inter-agency teamwork in launching SIM.
CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU to everyone involved in making SIM a success across our capital city.
Announcing NRL partnership with NHS Digital
24/09/19
We are delighted to announce that the High Intensity Network will be working in partnership with NHS Digital to roll out the National Record Locator (NRL) system across the NHS.
The NRL will allow mental health crisis care plans to be published in one single, national database within the Summary Care Record system, supported by the NHS Spine IT network.
It means that finally all 58 mental health providers will be able to search for, read and download crisis plans for patients being managed in other areas of the country.
This is a major step forward in connecting care for some of the countries most critical crisis care patients, especially those who use multiple urgent care services across NHS services and geographical boundaries.
We will be focusing heavily on connecting NHS clinicians who operate within the 4 types of 'Health & Justice teams':
1. Control Room Triage
2. Street Triage
3. Liaison and Diversion
4. High Intensity intervention teams.
We have just started to work with 4 pathfinder mental health trusts but all other trusts will be connected during 2020.
For more information: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-record-locator#how-it-works
Congratulations to Hertfordshire!
19/09/19
Hertfordshire's first team launched today.
The team will primarily focus on supporting high intensity patients in St Albans and Hemel Hempstead and will be working closely with the SIM Bedfordshire & Luton team as they build and move forward.
Thank you to all involved in preparing for launch.
See you in 3 months for your first support visit!
Announcing our new team members
14/09/19
We are delighted to announce that we have recruited two new members to our national network team.
JULIA DAVIS has joined us as our TEAM DEVELOPMENT MANAGER.
Julia is a former Thames Valley and Surrey Police officer. She has 12 years of policing experience and was the team leader for the SHIPP team, one of our first SIM based teams in Surrey from 2017 - 2019. Julia has extensive experience in building new high intensity teams from scratch and managing high intensity service users.
Julia's job is:
- To support our teams in developing their working practices post-launch.
- To advise and connect teams who are case managing specific service users.
- To connect teams when service users cross geographical borders from one NHS Trust/Policing area to another.
ROB KING has joined us as our N.R.L PROJECT MANAGER.
Rob is a former specialist mental health officer from Cleveland Police with 28 years policing experience. In 2011, Rob developed the first ever Street Triage crisis response team in the UK as well as developing several other breakthrough Health & Justice programmes across the North-East of England.
Rob's job is:
- To help NHS Trusts and their policing partners connect their crisis care plans to a new NHS Digital system called the NATIONAL RECORD LOCATOR (NRL). Once established across all organisations, the NRL will allow NHS staff (and other 999 staff working within specialist mental health teams), to find and read crisis care plans for service users both within their own trust area and from other trust areas. This will ensure that pre-agreed responses to specific patients are confidently and consistently followed by any professional who assists them in crisis. Organisations within the High Intensity Network will get priority connection to the NRL.
We are absolutely delighted to have both Julia and Rob on board. Nationally they have been two 'leading lights' in the evolution of mental health focused policing.
You can read more about them in our 'Meet the Teams' area.
Suicide Prevention Day - A message from our National Director
10/09/19
"As an organisation that is only 3 years old, we have come a long way. We are proud that we are now leading new conversations across the UK's 58 mental health trusts, 43 police forces, 10 ambulance trusts and all A&E departments. We are now collectively exploring ways in which we can all safeguard people within our communities who experience regular thoughts of self harm and who demonstrate their distress in highly frequent, impactful and sometimes harmful ways.
Whilst most of the people we support do not wish for their lives to end, their distress is genuine and their behavioural responses are often driven by a lack of skills to cope in any other way.
Statistics tell us that 3 in 4 people who complete suicide are not known to mental health services at all, so the patients we know and support are not the primary group of people across our towns and cities who we most associate with suicide but they do place themselves in situations where they are at very high risk of dying from accidents associated with expressing their suicidal thoughts. This type of death is called 'misadventure'.
To all of our patients and to those who we don't know, I would like to send you this personal message on Suicide Prevention Day 2019.
I am myself a suicide survivor and this is what I have learnt along my own journey.
Most of the thoughts and feelings you feel when you are suicidal are lies so I want to remind you of the core truths about you. They are:
You ARE loved
You are NOT alone
These feelings ALWAYS go away
There IS always hope.
Sure, nothing good lasts forever (but that also must mean that nothing bad lasts forever either!).
Please hold on - I can't tell you when the storm will pass but I can promise you that it WILL get brighter. We all have storms and we ALWAYS grow in those storms.
Fight on and go again. There will never be another you so please don't end your life - you are amazing.
As a Christian bloke, I also truly believe this: that you are alive for a reason. I believe that your life was not an accident and that you are part of a bigger plan. Please, please hold on to find out what your true identity and purpose is. If you die, you will never know.
Surviving suicide is all about looking beyond the intensive, deeply painful 'now' and looking to the horizon in hope. I have been there, I have dug in, I have spent time in hospital, taken the meds and prized myself out of bed on the darkest days. The pain and grind is often horrendous BUT......I promise you that the horizon always gets brighter. The storm always passes and tomorrow will bring a new perspective so please don't complete suicide - hold on, dig in, wait and find out!
My journey with suicide carries on today - I still have the same wounds from the past and I still take meds...its who I am. But I have learnt so much about myself as a result and have grown hugely because I have been faced with and embraced these ultimate 'live or die?' questions. My life is richer because of these battles.
Suicidal thoughts can in many ways be a gift - they can be life changing if you view them in the right way. People all over the world have changed their lives beyond comprehension due to their own emotional journey with these questions. It is all about perspective and hope - so please try and believe this one core truth about yourself:
You ARE incredible and you DO have so much to offer.
Don't do it - hold on - God bless x".
Paul
High Intensity Network - National Director
Congratulations to Teeside!
04/09/19
Congratulations to the team in Teeside who completed their High Intensity Course today and are starting out on their journey to provide advanced levels of intervention alongside their service users.
Research Partnership
03/08/19
Congratulations to Dr Claire Warrington from the University of Brighton who became a Doctor last week.
Claire has been working with us for a number of years informally, but she is now being funded to continue her research into high intensity mental health crisis.
We will be supporting Claire's research as much as we can, so we can collectively improve our understanding of the unique characteristics of repeat crises.
This will help us to further develop our work with these service users.