Update from Naomi Malcolm, Primary Mental Health Programme Lead It is no secret that the referral process and manner of allocating funding in CPO MH has been a pain point for many, resulting in frustration for referrers and inequities for our population. This was certainly confirmed in our recent survey to General Practice, where there was not a single respondent who was satisfied with our process. To address these issues, we have developed a simplified referral form; with two options for referral into our service: 1. Social worker. 2. Mental health support (this option is for individual counselling and group workshops). The Kessler will not be mandatory, and the referral form has been significantly simplified within. There is provision for the referrer to advise which support they feel would most benefit their patient and to give background information. The MH team will contact the patient to complete the Kessler, assess their needs and make a treatment plan, e.g. refer to group workshops, individual counselling sessions etc. With this new, simplified process, we will no longer pay a fee for referrals. The fee of $34.50 currently paid to practices for referral into service will cease once the new referral form is live in best practice. These funds will be directed into the provision of service as is their intention within our contract with the DHB. Extended consults will be claimed under Halcyon (there will be a link on the Best Practice form to this for GPs) and there will be allocations of these to practices.
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