MHM Sept

It has been great to get some sunshine in recent weeks and enjoy some warmer weather, helping many of us to beat away the winter blues.

Service Update The Primary Mental Health Service has been very busy with high numbers of referrals, leading to delays in the triaging of referrals. Please remember to use your Health Improvement Practitioners in the first instance if available in your practice, and the MSD resources outlined below for those that are eligible.

We are hopeful that the changes to the provision of our service are starting to have a positive impact for our patients and referrers alike.

Demand for psychoeducation group workshops remains very low, but given the reduction in COVID infections across our population, and improving weather we will be giving consideration to commencing some of these workshops in coming months.

You will find attached a survey for any referrers to complete, it includes the changes made to referral processes, service provision and funding allocation. We are hoping to ascertain the impacts noticed by referrers to these processes. Please take a quick minute to complete this.

Your input and feedback is of great value to us.

Interface between Primary and Secondary Mental Health Services No doubt it can be tempting to concurrently refer patients to both WBOP PHO and (former) DHB mental health services simultaneously to try to minimise waiting times.

However, due to contractual issues, the PHO is unable to accept a referral until the DHB has triaged and graded it, and in fact a dual referral can lead to delays. We cannot accept referrals for those already receiving treatment from secondary services.

The information contained in the DHB triage and specialist letters is sent to GPs only, and not accessible to the PHO Mental Health team.

In future, it would be helpful if referrals, for patients who you believe require secondary care level input, could be made to the DHB in the first instance, and only then to the PHO if the DHB referral is declined.

Please can you also attach the outcome of the DHB triage, and any relevant clinical documents to your referral to the PHO, as this information is not available to the PHO mental health team otherwise. The Primary Mental Health team is unable to access this information without signed consent of the patient sourcing this information can lead to further delays for provision of service.

Access to Counselling for Patients supported by MSD and low income The primary mental Health service is not resourced to meet all the demand within our community for talking therapies or counselling. 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.

Counselling - Work and Income 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 counselling.

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 counselling, anyone who is a MSD client on a Work and Income benefit can self-refer to; offering individual phone counselling, 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 counsellor 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 this service in the first instance, if you believe it is appropriate for your patients’ presentation.

Thank you for working with us to ensure our resources are efficiently and wisely used to deliver support across our community.

Please see attached information on training opportunities, free webinars, Flurofest 2022, the Waves programme, and Whetu Marewa, a local service for young people aged 12-24 or for whom 6 sessions of talking therapy is not enough.