Priory to launch ‘nurse-led’ community mental health service

Private mental health care provider the Priory has announced the opening of its first ‘nurse-led’ community service.

Melton Place, located in Melton Mowbray, Leicester, will provide a non-hospital setting for people who no longer require inpatient care but are not yet ready for discharge into the community and will see ‘24/7 nursing support’.

Described as a ‘residential alternative’ to hospital for adults with complex mental health needs, the service is set to accept admissions from March.

It will be the first specialist community mental health service developed by the Priory and is intended to support the government’s plans to ‘shift from hospital to community care’.

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With 26 beds available for people over 18, including those who may be on the autism spectrum, the new service replaces Priory Hospital Burton Park which was a high-dependency rehabilitation service for people with an acquired brain injury.

The new specialist team includes 24/7 nursing support and 24-hour on-call arrangements for physical health issues.

Routine medication reviews and complex case management will be overseen by a consultant psychiatrist, while positive behaviour support (PBS) will be provided by practitioners as a core part of the service’s recovery programme.

The Priory said the service had been designed to support local priorities around hospital discharge, step-down care and community rehabilitation in partnership with local authority and NHS commissioning partners.

Gary Stobbs, Priory’s managing director, said: ‘This service bridges the gap between hospital rehabilitation and community living and will avoid or reduce the length of hospital admission in an environment that supports recovery, personal growth, inclusion, confidence and skill acquisition.

‘The support provided at Melton Place is focused on stabilisation, recovery and progression towards further independence and has been designed in collaboration with system partners to meet regional demand.

‘This service will be particularly appropriate for people who may have been stuck in hospital settings for significant periods of time – or would previously have been admitted – but would benefit more from a residential, community setting.

‘This new model of care will meet the growing needs of our communities and enable more people to receive specialist support closer to home.’

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Louise Griffiths, Priory’s director of strategy and service development, added: ‘Daily routines balance structure and flexibility, promoting engagement, self-care and responsibility.’

She explained that the service would offer ‘group sessions, health promotion, vocational opportunities and leisure programmes, with family and carers encouraged to participate through regular contact, reviews and feedback forums’.

The new service comes after the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) annual report into the state of health care and adult social care in England, published in October last year, highlighted a demand for mental healthcare continues to rise, with almost half a million new referrals to secondary mental health services every month.

For those who receive hospital treatment, the CQC reports that a lack of support post-discharge is leading to people being readmitted to hospital regularly.

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The report also spotlighted serious concerns around dwindling district nurse numbers and the impact this was having on care – including that staff shortages and high levels of referrals meant patients were, in some cases, being left to deteriorate.

The healthcare watchdog stressed that district nurses were an ‘important part of shifting care from hospital settings into the community’ because the services they provide can ‘take pressure off secondary care services by preventing admissions to an acute hospital and facilitating earlier hospital discharges’.

It warned: ‘A shortage of qualified staff in district nursing is contributing to a shift away from providing holistic care to delivering services in a task-based way.’