Mental health

Mental illness is the single largest cause of disability in the UK and a major driver of health inequalities.

In response to meet the mandate of the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) for mental health, mid and south Essex has developed through co-production an extensive adults and older adults mental health transformation programme with the ambition to:

• improve urgent and emergency mental health care – crisis response and care,
• integrate social care, mental health and physical health – parity of esteem and care closer to home,
• promote good mental health and prevent poor mental health – early intervention and prevention.

What we want to achieve

We want to ensure that we can provide a service offer that is consistent, compassionate, and flexible to meet our residents’ mental health needs across the geography of mid and south Essex.

This will mean responding in a timely manner when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, intervening earlier to prevent deterioration of symptoms, and supporting people to recover and build their resilience.

We aim to deliver the ambition of seamless support so that people do not receive multiple assessments where they repeat their stories to different professionals or get to be bounced around services and providers.

We will embed a holistic approach to the support we provide so that we are better able to meet the physical health needs of people with mental health concerns and the mental health needs of people presenting with physical health conditions, including people enduring co-existing addiction issues.

We want to achieve our ambition by working with all stakeholders especially people who use services and our frontline staff who deliver the services so that our transformation of mental health services in mid and south Essex is informed by both lived and learned experience.

We will collaborate and work in partnership with local authorities and the voluntary sector to secure the support for determinants such as housing, debt, employment that adversely impact on mental health creating inequality to access, experience and outcomes.

Where we are now

Residents continue to have access to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services where you can be referred by your healthcare professional or self-refer. 

Children’s and Adolescent’s Mental Health Service

The Southend, Essex and Thurrock Children’s and Adolescent’s Mental Health Service (SET CAMHS) provides advice and support to children, young people and families who are in need of support with their emotional wellbeing or mental health difficulties. You can contact the service on 0800 953 0222. If you’re call is out-of-hours and urgent, call 0800 995 1000. You can find out more about the service on the NELFT website.

Mental health crisis response

The 24-7 mental health crisis response service via 111 Option 2 opened its doors to the public in 2020, offering local people access to responsive support when in a mental health crisis. The service is complemented by three mental health crisis sanctuaries that provide a non-clinical environment to help resolve the issues that led to a crisis.

Specialist mental health teams

Since April 2021 specialist mental health teams are being embedded in primary care networks (PCNs). This means people experiencing mental health problems that cannot be met by the IAPT services can now get help through their GP surgery.

Dementia Support – Essex County Council area

If you or someone you care for has dementia, you can get advice and support from Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Connect. It’s free, easy to access, and puts you in touch with Alzheimer’s Society’s dementia advisers.