Mark Trewin, Bradford Metropolitan District Council and NHSE Adult Mental Health Team
One of the major objectives within the Five Year Forward View implementation plan is the need to support people locally and reduce the number of out of area placements (‘OAPs’). There is also a related target to reduce the number of detentions under the Mental Health Act.
In this first briefing of our ‘We need to talk about social care’ series, Mark Trewin looks at the human and operational costs of out of area placements. Sharing his perspective and experience, Mark highlights the way Bradford Metropolitan District Council have managed to reduce out of area placements and use of local private sector hospitals down to zero, over the past two years.
About the series:
When people think about social care, they often think of older people and domiciliary care. This of course remains an important aspect of social care policy and practice; however, mental health social care services also underpin people’s lives when they are not in hospital – which is most of the time. In this series, we will be highlighting some of the important issues related to social care and share the extraordinary work going on around the country. We want to talk about what works, what has meaningful impact and most of all what prevents people from spiralling into crisis.
