Mental Health

Mental health problems are widespread, at times disabling, yet often hidden.

People who would go to their GP with chest pains will suffer depression or anxiety in silence. One in four adults experiences at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year.

People in all walks of life can be affected and at any point in their lives, including new mothers, children, teenagers, adults and older people. Mental health problems represent the largest single cause of disability in the UK. The cost to the economy is estimated at £105 billion a year – roughly the cost of the entire NHS.

Nationally, the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, a cross government mental health outcome strategy for all ages, sets out the vision to improve outcomes for mental health service users and promote mental health and wellbeing.

View Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.

Locally, a lot of work and resource has been invested into our mental health services and we work with service users, our partners and providers including NHS North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and third sector not-for-profit organisations such as Talking Matters Warrington and charities such as St Joseph’s Family Centre to provide mental health care, driven by the needs of local people.

One of the biggest changes for mental health service is bringing mental health services and physical health services together, we need to ensure that people with mental health conditions are not disadvantaged for receiving health care; this is known as parity of esteem.

As part of developments within our mental health work stream, we are working to build and deliver expanded psychological services. This development will see trained psychological practitioners allocated to GP clusters, bringing services closer to you.

These practitioners will be able to help with common mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression and phobias.

To ensure that urgent and emergency care for mental health is delivered to the same standards as the equivalent for physical health, we are also developing our Psychiatric Liaison services working with nursing and clinical staff from NHS Warrington and Halton NHS Foundation Trust and North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Our work in developing Dementia services is based around the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2020 that aims to improve the all aspects of dementia care.

With this in mind, we are working with our GPs to ensure that there is timely diagnosis of dementia and that when a diagnosis has been made, that with the help of social care, commissioned and provided by Warrington Borough Council, patients can live well and maintain their independence.