Level Up and EmpowerED one year on

The innovative models for designing and delivering specialised mental health services across Cheshire and Merseyside have officially been live for one year.

The partnerships, that are made up of a variety of NHS and independent sector providers, recently held a reflection event in Warrington Conference Centre to give an opportunity to everyone involved to come together and plan for the future. Health professionals and experts by experiences share their views on the difference Provider Collaboratives make.

What are provider collaboratives?

NHS-led Provider Collaboratives mark a fresh era for specialised mental health with a new way of planning and providing specialist mental health, learning disability and autism services. They aim to deliver care closer to home, invest in community services and drive improvements in patient outcomes and experience.

Level Up is focused on ensuring that all services across Cheshire and Merseyside providing Tier 4 Children and Adolescent Mental Specialist Health Services are working closely together to provide the best possible care to young people who access the services and their carers/families.

Dr Fiona Pender, Level Up strategic clinical advisor, said:

Over the last 12 months Level Up has made significant strides in improving not just the services, but the system that underpins the care that young people receive in Cheshire and Merseyside. Level Up has recently launched the Complex Needs Escalation and Support Tool Training, and the Cheshire and Merseyside gateway meetings.

These two initiatives will coordinate a multi-agency response to young people and their families to get the most appropriate support and interventions, reducing the risk of admission to a hospital.

It is our priority to continue to ensure people who have used services, our experts by experience, voices are heard, and they continue to get the opportunity to help us shape services across Cheshire and Merseyside.

Georgia, who talked about her journey at the event, explained:

As an expert by experience I feel my views and comments are listened to and taken on board. It feels empowering to be moulding our services for the future to get the best outcomes possible.

Learn more about Level Up on our website: www.levelupcm.nhs.uk

EmpowerED, Adult Eating Disorders North West Provider Collaborative

EmpowerED, Adult Eating Disorders Provider Collaborative North West is committed to driving improvements across the eating disorders patient pathway and working with experts by experience to ensure people who access eating disorder services are empowered to play a full and active role in their development.

Duncan Campbell, head of clinical care for EmpowerED said:

We’re really excited that we’re one year in now, and the reflection event gave us the opportunity to take stock of the achievements of the last twelve months and helped us plan for the future.

We use data, research, and clinical knowledge to work towards our goals, but we need to have the voice of our experts by experience to really focus our work.” Our experts by experience will challenge and guide us, and the reflection event was the perfect opportunity to link NHS professionals, independent professionals, charities, and experts by experience together with the sole purpose of improving care for people with eating

What our EmpowerED experts by experience said:

It was of course a very rewarding and insightful experience knowing that positive change may be on the horizon and I am lucky enough to be playing a small part in that.

Fantastic to be talking, thinking, problem solving as part of a team! A space to be ‘curious’ and empower real change around approaches to eating disorders. I’ve come away feeling optimistic and excited to see change for the better within the North West. An ‘Empowering’ day!

Learn more about EmpowerED on our website: www.empowerednw.nhs.uk