Double Celebration
A celebration event took place at the Armagh City Hotel attended by staff, service users and a range of professionals from across both SHSCT and ELFT where key milestones and successes of the Steps to Wellness collaboration were shared. Then, on Friday 19 April, the team were announced as the winners of the Working Together Award for Team of the Year in the SHSCT: Our People Awards.
Background
The ‘Steps to Wellness’ service was established in early 2022. It was clinically developed and led in collaboration by both Trusts with the aim of developing a service that mirrored England’s ‘Talking Therapies’ services. The core focus was to provide a stepped care model of treatment for those presenting with mild to moderate common mental health difficulties.
Setting up the Steps to Wellbeing Service
Northern Ireland staff were guided, supported and undertook training provided by ELFT practitioners and trainers to deliver clinical group treatments online as the primary mode of intervention. This included webinars, the use of PageTiger (a platform to develop and lay out information to refer to), and procedures led by Quality Improvement methodology. These all helped to equip SHSCT staff to grow in confidence and know-how to provide therapy in this way.
Director of Mental Health and Disability Jan McGall said,“I am delighted to see both the service change and the positive patient/service user outcomes that have been achieved through the Steps to Wellness Service. The Southern HSC Trust has benefitted significantly from the partnership approach with ELFT that this service development has delivered and are grateful for the expertise, professionalism and enthusiasm colleagues have brought to the process. What we have now through Steps to Wellness is an evidence based, person centred and recovery focused service, that is generating very positive clinical improvement outcomes and patient/service user satisfaction. I am keen to see the continued evolution of Steps to Wellness and build on the legacy left by the partnership with ELFT.”
Impact on Mental Health Services
The development of Steps to Wellness had a huge impact on the Southern Trust’s mental health system, reducing waiting times across the services. The service quickly took on over 1000 referrals and managed to offer treatments and bring waiting times down for both assessments and interventions. 114 clinical groups have been run online in the past 12 months alongside one-to-one appointments, webinars and signposting to other support services in the community and voluntary sector. Recovery data showed that improvements to the wellbeing of individuals was in line with NHS Talking Therapies services.
Evaluation and Feedback
The feedback from people who have used the service has been extremely positive. There are 24 stories available to read on Care Opinion. 8 out of every 10 service users strongly agreed that the 'sessions empowered me with greater understanding and relevant skills towards achieving my therapy goals' and 84% of service user responses indicated that they felt they were well informed of the therapy options and felt involved in deciding the next best steps for them at their assessment. Steps to Wellness published an article in CBT Today in February 2023 detailing the progress of the service, and attended the BABCP Conference in Dublin 2023, displaying two posters to explain their journey and the positive outcomes attained.
Clinical Lead of Steps to Wellness and ELFT employee, David Walter, said, “It is wonderful to see the impact that this collaboration is having for service users. Their feedback has been very heartening and has shaped the development of the service from the beginning. This has been an excellent example of how two Trusts geographically and culturally different from each other can work together to improve outcomes and experiences for clients. This has been a productive and successful learning experience and having now left the service in safe hands, we look forward to seeing how Steps to Wellness develops into the future now that ELFTs involvement is complete”.
Ros Alban and Monton Jienpetivete - Joint Head of Service for ELFT Talking Therapies Services are over the moon about the success of this venture and the award. "We have really enjoyed the chance to collaborate and share our knowledge and skills of building high quality talking therapies services with the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. The project has been a huge success and we are proud to have left the legacy of a brilliant talking therapies service.”
Congratulations everyone!