Community Mental Health Teams

CMHT South Sefton

The Community Mental Health Team is based within South Sefton Neighbourhood Centre. Team Manager, Lead Practitioner, Social Workers, Community Care Practitioners and Support Workers who are co-located with doctors, nurses, occupational therapists and support staff employed by Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.

Within South Sefton Neighbourhood Centre, there are three CMHTs (Maghull, Crosby and Bootle) as well as the Complex Care Team (Older Persons CMHT), Memory Clinic and the Early Intervention Team.

The local authority staff in this team work with all adults open to secondary mental health services (under the age of 65) to produce high quality assessments of need and arrange care and support to meet the eligible needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Sefton. The team also completes safeguarding enquiries in line with s42 Care Act 2014 as well as Court of Protection work.

Team Manager: Mary Helsby (Mary.Helsby2@sefton.gov.uk)

CMHT North Sefton

The Community Mental Health Team is based in the Pine and Dunes wards at Hartley Hospital, Southport. The social care team comprises of a Team Manager, Lead Practitioner, Social Workers, Community Care Practitioners and Support Workers who are co-located with doctors, nurses, occupational therapists and support staff employed by Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. On this site also, are the Early Intervention Team, Learning Disability Team and the Park Unit (Acute Psychiatric Ward for Adults).

The CMHT is split into two multi-disciplinary teams covering from Crossens to Hightown. The local authority staff in this team work alongside adults who are supported by secondary mental health services (under the age of 65) to produce high quality assessments of need and arrange care and support to meet the eligible needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Sefton.  The team also provides a safeguarding service for people who are supported within adult mental health services as well as Court of Protection case work.

A range of community-based services and interventions is available in the local area and the team supports people to access these services with the aim of improving the long-term wellbeing of individuals, their families and carers.

Team Manager: Fliss Shepley (Felicity.Shepley@sefton.gov.uk)

Approved Mental Health Professionals

An AMHP is a qualified professional who has completed specialist mental health training. As a result, they are eligible to be approved by a local authority to carry out certain duties under the Mental Health Act 1983 and associated regulations. This means that they are responsible for coordinating the assessment and admission to hospital of a person who is being detained (‘sectioned’) under the Act. AMHPs are essential to helping people get the right treatment at a critical and often very distressing time, and their decisions can have a huge impact on a person’s wellbeing. The specialist training they receive must equip them for this responsibility.

Sefton Council currently operate two AMHP rotas:

• The daytime AMHP rota is staffed by AMHPs who have substantive posts in social worker teams within the ASC Department, as well as some AMHPs employed by Merseycare NHS Foundation Trust. The AMHPs based within Community Mental Health Teams complete work on the daytime AMHP rota as part of their core duties. This rota has up to four AMHPs on a daily basis;
• The EDT AMHP Standby rota operates outside of normal working hours, AMHP work is completed by a lone-working AMHP through the EDT team, who is on-call from home and responds to any assessments.

Lead AMHP: Matthew Walton (matthew.walton@sefton.gov.uk)

Contents

The primary purpose of these procedures is to support adult social care practitioners in mental health services to perform their statutory functions under the Care Act and the Mental Capacity Act.

Alongside these procedures regard should also be had for local processes and guidance provided by Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.