Guernsey Press

States asks charity to step in on mental health

THE States is to pay the charity Guernsey Mind £65,000 over the next 12 months in a bid for the charity to try to fill a gap in local mental health services.

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Deputy Marc Leadbeater, left, Jo Cottell CEO of Guernsey Mind and Deputy Heidi Soulsby. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 34048776)

Guernsey Mind will use the money to develop its Supported Self-Help programme, an early intervention service which people can self-refer onto without a GP appointment, and which involves six sessions either in-person or over the phone with a trained practitioner.

Deputy Marc Leadbeater, vice-president of the Health & Social Care Committee, said that gaps had been identified in mental health services and the committee felt it would be most cost-effective for the charity to step in.

‘I think the services generally are delivered by primary care, so people have to go and see their GPs, and GPs aren’t necessarily the best place to be able to deliver the services that are needed for those people,’ he said.

‘Guernsey Mind is probably best to deliver the services in a more effective and efficient way than HSC.’

He said that the partnership had been borne out of a collaboration that had come about as part of the States’ Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy.

It made more sense for HSC to support Guernsey Mind’s own initiative than attempting to duplicate it and run in parallel.

The ‘early intervention’ service is for people with mild or moderate mental health problems.

Guernsey Mind CEO Jo Cottell said the programme began in March last year and had proven to be a success for the charity, with one full-time member of staff seeing about 100 people.

‘The demand for the service has been quite high, and it seems to be the more that we talk about it the more people get in touch.

‘Early intervention and prevention are crucial in mental health so we’re delighted that HSC has recognised the importance of Guernsey Mind’s work at a community level.’

She welcomed the funding, but admitted it remained to be seen whether or not £65,000 would be enough to cover the expected additional demand, although she did not wish to speculate how many more people this could be.

She added she would be meeting ‘regularly’ with Public Health officials over the next 12 months as demand became clearer.

‘We have certain key performance indicators that we need to hit,’ she said.

‘One of those is what we think we will be able to support, but if suddenly demand is double then that’s another conversation we need to have.

‘We should know within about six months what’s working.’