Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to improve access to mental health services for black and ethnic minority people in the London Borough of Southwark.

This is a matter for the local National Health Service.

NHS England has advised that during 2015 Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Southwark Council focused on engaging with the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community at a number of events to identify which groups are affected by inequality of access and support. Learning from the events informed Southwark’s Joint Mental Health Strategy. Key areas of focus included:

- Access to community services, as Southwark inpatient services are used by more black African/Caribbean men due to psychosis than the general population;

- Access to interpreters where there may be possible language barriers;

- Staff understanding of behaviour in the context of cultural and religious beliefs; and

- What can Southwark do to ensure more BAME residents use community based mental health services.

We understand that following the review recommendations to focus for future mental health services for BAME and marginalised services will include:

- Information and Advice;

- Peer Support;

- Community Networks;

- Self Management;

- Befriending; and

- Social Inclusion.

There will also be a strong focus on:

- ensuring services are personalised so that they meet specific cultural needs of individuals, including through the provision of personal budgets;

- support to carers, enabling families to support their relatives in a culturally appropriate fashion;

- promotion of employment; and

- ensuring crisis and place of safety services are appropriate. Additional Place of Safety mental health suites are due to open at King’s College Hospital.

Further, the CCG is working with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to develop and transform mental health services. The aim is to commission more community based services supporting people within their homes wherever possible. There are no plans to increase bed capacity, but the CCG is looking at how bed utilisation can be improved, by reducing length of stays and reviewing step down arrangements.

The CCG has also established a Home Treatment Team in recent months which is managing complex cases within the community, avoiding the need for hospital admissions.