Agenda item

To update the Health and Wellbeing Board on the activity being undertaken within the adult mental health workstream of the Brent Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) / Borough Based Partnership.

Sarah Nyandoro introduced the report, which provided an update on the data of mental health performance in Brent, the delivery of the mental health programme, plans for further work on cultural competence within the mental health and wellbeing priority programme, and a deep dive into data regarding mental health patients from the private rented sector. Matt Henshaw added that the NW2 and NW10 pilots linked with the Integrated Neighbourhood Team (INT) work discussed in the previous item and was a good example of collaboration with other services. The pilots had worked well, with an improved presence at Northwick Park Hospital and the project had enabled a focus on those communities and a place-based approach.

The Chair then invited questions and comments, with the following points raised:

• In relation to children and young people accessing specialist mental health support in the way they wanted to, the Board asked whether Kooth online was being used as one of the options. Sarah Nyandoro confirmed that the Kooth online service was used across all 8 NWL boroughs, with the highest numbers accessing the service being children and young people from Brent. The highest outcomes in terms of children and young people’s needs being met was also from Brent. The ICP was looking at a more preventative approach and one way of doing that was through increasing mental health support teams in schools and the number of schools being supported. The ICP Exec was also looking at the services they would like to develop as part of the transformation programme.
• The Board highlighted concerns that the data was lacking in relation to mental health and the Private Rented Sector, as a large proportion of Brent residents were private renters, and asked what would be done to obtain that data. Rachel Crossley advised that obtaining that data depended on what people recorded and what people disclosed, and with the private sector so broad and unregulated getting that data sharing in place was a challenge. There were other routes to that information, such as through GPs, but she was doubtful that person level data providing the full picture would ever be obtained. The ICP was working with services about what was collected and how to use that data to get a better understanding of residents.
• The Board asked whether there were any updates on whether funding for children and young people neurodiversity assessments would continue. Sarah Nyandoro advised that the funding had only been in place until September 2024 and current discussions were underway with NWL ICB regarding continued funding because demand continue to increase. There was no firm response on that, but the ICP had been told they were likely to receive the same non-recurrent funding. Nigel Chapman added that young people with acute mental health need continued to wait longer in Brent for services compared to other areas of NWL, and an area for priority and action arising from the recent local area SEND inspection was around reducing waiting times for specialist mental health services. As such, a commitment had been provided from the NWL ICB and CNWL to actively tackle that and have an action plan signed off in April 2025 which he hoped would give greater commitment and clarity of funding that was equitable across the NWL footprint.
• The Board commended the work the ICP Exec was doing around employment and highlighted the need to consider the impact of welfare benefit changes. They asked whether CNWL was in a position to know the number of people needing employment support. Matt Henshaw advised that CNWL was in a position to do that, and routinely captured people’s employment status across all services. There was provision to provide specific support within community mental health teams around employment with employment specialists employed. Further information could be reported back to the Board.

As no further issues were raised, the Chair drew the discussion to a close and asked the Board to note the update. The Vice Chair requested that the mental health transformation plan for children and young people was presented to a future meeting.