Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Type of Trust
Mental Health trust
Location
Trust Details
Last annual budget £133 million
Employees 2350
Chair Julie Dent CBE
Chief Executive Melanie Walker
Links
Website Devon Partnership
Wiki-Links National Health Service

Devon Partnership NHS Trust was established in 2001. It provides mental health and learning disability services in Devon (excluding Plymouth), England.

During the course of a year, the Trust works with around 40,000 people and supports around 18,000 people at any one time. It provides a wide range of services, including those for:

• Adults

• Older people (including a Dementia Wellbeing Service in Bristol). The Trust created an innovative care home training project in 2013 receiving funding from the Prime Ministers Dementia Challellenge Fund. The South Devon Care Home Learning Community has shown a significant improvement in the quality of care for people with dementia in care homes and won the British Medical Journal Dementia Team of the Year 2015. The recent reorganisation of the Devon Dementia Service has also received a Royal College of Psychiatrists Innovation Award and was shortlisted for a National Patient Safety Award in 2015.

• People who are low in mood, stressed, anxious or depressed

• People with an eating disorder

• People in general hospitals who may have mental health and/or learning disability needs as well as physical health needs

• Pregnant women and new mothers

• People who have concerns about their gender

• People with drug and alcohol needs (in Torbay)

• People in contact with the police and criminal justice system

• People who need support and care in secure services


As well as community and hospital services, the Trust has a number of other teams providing services for people with more specific needs. These include:

• Depression and Anxiety Service • A range of secure services provided at Langdon in Dawlish – which generally support people who have come into contact with the criminal justice system • The Haldon Eating Disorder Service in Exeter, which provides residential care and treatment for people with severe disorders, such as anorexia nervosa • The West of England Gender Identity Clinic, for people with issues around their gender • MINDFUL EMPLOYER - an initiative that recognises and supports employers who are Positive about mental health. The scheme celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2014, has received widespread praise and has been adopted by countries as far afield as Canada and Australia.

The Trust has specialist Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Teams that support people who require urgent care and support. Increasingly, it is working with colleagues in the county’s general hospitals to integrate physical health services with mental health and learning disability services. These include liaison psychiatry teams to support adults and older people in hospital with a wide range of needs, as well as specialist learning disability nurses, memory clinics (to support people with a possible diagnosis of dementia) and perinatal teams to support pregnant women and new mothers. The Trust is also working increasingly closely with the police to support people with mental health and learning disability needs and its Street Triage and Liaison and Diversion services have attracted widespread acclaim.

In November 2013 it was accused by the RSPB of “willful destruction” of farmland near Exminster which is home to a nationally important population of cirl buntings alleging that a deliberate decision was taken to sacrifice the wildlife value of the site as part of a determination to make it easier to gain planning permission for development. The Trust immediately apologised for its actions and is now working closely with the RSPB on projects related to wildlife and mental health and wellbeing. [1]

In December 2013 it was announced that the Trust would be among the first to trial the Care Quality Commission’s planned approach to inspecting mental health services because Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority wanted assurance on the quality of the services they provide before progressing their Foundation Trust applications.[2]

Devon Partnership NHS Trust does not provide Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Devon. However, it strives to work closely with other loal agencies when issues around the urgent care of younger people with mental health needs arise. In December 2014 Paul Netherton, assistant chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, complained publicly after a 16-year-old girl suffering mental health issues was held in a custody cell in Devon for around 48 hours because there were “no beds available in the UK”. 750 mentally ill people – including 28 children – have been detained in police custody in the county during 2014. Adolescents with mental health problems in Devon have been sent to units in Hull, Newcastle and Lancashire, and several vulnerable young people in the county have also been admitted to adult psychiatric units.[3]

A warning notice was issued to the Trust after a Care Quality Commission inspection in 2014 found that patients on the admission ward for adults of working age at Wonford Hospital were still not consistently involved in the preparation of their care plans and did not have regular access to their named nurses and that people, mainly in the Exeter area, who might need to be detained under the Mental Health Act were having to wait a long time to be assessed by an approved doctor. This warning notice was lifted a few months later when the Trust demonstrated that it had made prompt improvements. Many other aspects of the CQC's inspection were positive about the high quality of the Trust's staff and services. [4]

References

  1. ↑ "NHS accused of destroying cirl bunting site". Western Morning News. 11 November 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  2. ↑ "Mental health inspection blueprint unveiled". Local Government Chronicle. 2 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  3. ↑ "Government to end scandal of mentally ill teens being held in police cells". Western Morning News. 15 December 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  4. ↑ "Warning issued to Devon Partnership NHS Trust after failure to complete improvements". Express and Echo. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2015.

See also

Devon County Lunatic Asylum at Exminster Devon Partnership NHS Trust

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