Mental Health Matters
Kia Ora
Happy
New Year!
It was a very busy time for the CPO Mental Health Team in the lead up to the festive season and the New Year looks to be continuing in a similar way.
CPO Social Worker
Violet Davidson has been with the CPO Mental Health Team since 2017, when the Social Worker position was created, it has been a lot of work for Violet to develop a model of delivery across our region. Violet has made the decision to move to Wellington to be nearer to whanau, so has resigned her position with us. Violet’s last day will be the 3rd Of February, I’m sure you will all join me in wishing Violet well in her new adventures.
We are very pleased to have recruited Melanie Rundell as Social Worker to our team who will start on the 13th Of February 2023. Melanie comes to us from Poutiri Trust where she has been working as a Dual Diagnosis Clinician. Melanie brings plenty of great experience from this work and has a fantastic reputation for delivering sound person-centered care. We are excited to welcome her to our team.
There will be a delay in the provision of social work due to the gap between clinicians and to allow Melanie time to orientate to our service, and organisation, please bear this in mind when you are considering referral to this aspect of our programme in the coming weeks
Additional Coordination Support
We are very pleased to advise that we have managed to recruit a very experienced Mental Health Registered Nurse to our team. Michelle Lowry comes to us with extensive experience as a psychiatric nurse both in the UK and New Zealand. Michelle has both clinical and management experience most recently working as Clinical Nurse Manager in Adult
Community Mental Health and Addictions for Te Whatu Ora Lakes . Michelle is a passionate mental health clinician; we are very excited to welcome her to our team she commences on the 1st of February 2023.
Service Overview
Our team is continuing to battle with limited staff to triage your referrals. This situation will continue until Michelle and Melanie are on board and orientated to our service and organisation. They will then work alongside Naomi, in triaging and treatment planning.
Please be aware there is currently a two-week waitlist, from time of receiving referral till we can contact your client to discuss their needs. We are prioritizing referrals particularly those with risk and our target populations including youth and post-natal women, but there are delays.
The level of demand for our service continues to far exceed our level of resourcing, we are doing our best to link those that we cannot fund into packages of care, with appropriate community support.
Many counselors and therapists are now on extended summer breaks. This impacts on wait times for those who are triaged to a package of care. With this in mind, we ask you to please advise your patient that there may be a wait for our service, and if you have a HIP in your practice, please utilise their skills for the management of people who are presenting requesting mental health support.
It is very important that those requiring urgent intervention are referred to the appropriate support, such as the Crisis team, who can respond urgently.
Our funding for Individual counseling continues to be inadequate for our population, we continue to actively work with Te Whatu Ora regarding our level of resourcing. Within your practices your assistance to ensure the people who most need our support are the ones referred, is most appreciated. The use of your HIPS and health coaches is recommended in the first instance.
Our service is unable to provide support for people who already have counseling in place through ACC, or who are under the care of secondary services such as Community Mental Health.
St Peters (https://www.stpetershouse.co.nz/counselling.html) are taking referrals again for individual and couples counseling and Hanmer Clinic (https://www.hanmerclinic.co.nz/) is again accepting referrals for those struggling with issues of substance use.
There is support accessible through the Ministry for Social Development (MSD) for patients who are supported by MSD (Jobseekers etc.) or who have low income and would qualify for Disability support as outlined in the link below.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/health-and-disability/counselling.html
Given the situation we face where demand is outstripping our resourcing, we request that you identify and work with your patients who are eligible for this support to access this
funding wherever possible. Our information manual outlines that those who can access alternative funding such as MSD or ACC are not eligible for PHO funded counseling.
Below is the form that is required to be completed for funding under Disability support. https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/health-and-disability/counselling.html
MSD also has a resource for counseling, anyone who is an MSD client on a Work and Income benefit can self-refer to; offering individual phone counseling, people can book session times to suit, with sessions offered from 9 am to 9 pm 7 days a week, multiple languages are available.
We have had patients access and feedback their experiences of this service and to date it has been positive; People need to call the 0800 number at the bottom of the page, they are allocated a number to login to the site and choose their counselor from the bio’s provided.
Here is the link to this service https://whakarongorau.nz/puawaitanga
Please share the information regarding this resource with your eligible patients and utilise these services in the first instance, if you believe it is appropriate for your patients’ clinical presentation.
Ngā Mihi nui Naomi Malcolm Programme Lead Primary Mental Health Service