A new alliance of organisations has come together in Lambeth to transform the lives of people with serious long-term mental health issues.
The Lambeth Integrated Personalised Support Alliance (IPSA) will offer people who currently go into long-term, expensive hospital rehabilitation wards or registered care homes the chance to live more independently in their own flat in the community. The IPSA is launching in April and will offer personalised care and support to improve people’s lives, offering early intervention before they get into repeated crisis and require hospital treatment. The aim is to help people who use the services recover and stay well, participate on an equal footing in daily life and make their own choices.
The alliance is made up of five partners – the charities Thames Reach and Certitude, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Lambeth Council. It’s part of a collaborative approach in the borough which brings together voluntary sector providers, health professionals, commissioners and the people using the services to devise a new way of offering services.
The IPSA is looking to obtain accommodation from a number of sources. These include social housing providers, by purchase on the open market and by negotiating with existing supported housing providers to extend their schemes. The aim is to provide a range of accommodation – self-contained and shared, and with and without integral support – to support a new offer in which people have increased choice and control over the type of support they receive and also where they live.
This approach represents an opportunity to continue to improve outcomes for people who require rehabilitation provision, focussed on their assets.
Aisling Duffy, Chair of the Alliance Leadership Team, said: “Recognising people’s strengths and abilities is a way to empower individuals to make their own choices about the support they receive. We are excited to be part of this new approach which will give people the opportunity to be central to their recovery journey.”