Creating a Vital Link

Posted by MHP on March 8, 2010 | No Comments |  Print this article |  Send to a friend

Metropolitan Support Trust (MST) has been commissioned by NHS Lambeth to set up an adult mental health service user and carer engagement body on its behalf. The engagement body, known as Vital Link, will function as the link between service users of adult mental health services and NHS Lambeth (Primary Care Trust). Launching on 5 March, at an event at Lambeth Accord in Brixton, the aim is for service users and carers to influence the decisions made by NHS Lambeth to enable better services to meet user and carer needs.

Made up of sixteen service users and carer representatives Vital Link will become a central point through which the representatives can share their opinions on the mental health services they receive which are fed back to NHS Lambeth. Representatives will also gather views of other service users and carers within Lambeth to assess their views on services and any decisions being made which may affect these services.

The representatives, working for up to two years, will also facilitate focus groups with other users and carers. They will conduct questionnaires, help organise consultation events and act as role models for those who are part of the recovery model/process.

The project also will partner with other employment and volunteering agencies in Lambeth in order to help representatives and participants become involved with Vital Link as well as create pathways back into the working community. There will be up to fifteen long and short term volunteer positions which will be available each year to help support the group. .

Lambeth’s executive director of public health Dr Ruth Wallis says: “Lambeth has a higher prevalence of mental health needs than comparative boroughs, and this makes mental health one of our key priorities. Common mental illness like depression is widespread, affecting up to 10 per cent of our population.

She continues: ‘Vital Link will provide us with a means to ensure we are providing services fit for purpose’.

Mark Austin, Managing Director of MST, says: Carers and the people who use services are the people who know those services best and are best placed to improve them. Vital Link co-ordinates this and gives the best possible chance for those improvements to happen. At the same time it directly improves the chances of service users getting jobs.

He added: ‘This service is a major opportunity to change the lives of users of mental health services across Lambeth. We are proud to have been given this responsibility by Lambeth NHS and are determined to really make it happen’