Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) has been recognised for its collaborative working with other services.
The trust was honoured at the North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards 2015, which celebrate work being undertaken across the region in relation to clinical research and innovation.
At the event’s core was the desire to demonstrate how clinical research and innovation efforts have had an impact on patient care across the North West Coast and to showcase ideas.
The awards were aimed at a variety of stakeholders who work with NHS partner organisations, industry partners, academic partners, and business partners working in health innovation.
The Street Triage team were selected as the outstanding example of inter-agency working from over 120 nominations received, for its work with Cheshire Constabulary in providing mental health support to incidents where the police are called.
CWP teamed up with Cheshire Police in a new approach to policing incidents involving people with mental ill-health.
More than 1,600 referrals have been received and without the intervention from the team a further 247 incidents would have ended up in accident and emergency services – a significant saving to already stretched NHS resources.
Overall Street Triage has shown a 92% reduction in the number of people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act as a result of the added insight of having a qualified mental health specialist on duty with the police to assist in assessing the best course of action.
Specialist forensic lead for CWP Gordon Leonard said: “This is a fantastic team achievement and we continue to show positive results for people who access our services throughout Cheshire. Working in partnership, with the support of Cheshire Police has made a massive difference in the success of this project.”
Mental health lead for Cheshire Police Inspector Richard Spedding added: “The ethos of Partnership Working have never been better illustrated than in the current Street Triage Team. The mutual benefit of early identification and intervention for people in crisis has realised significant savings for both police and health partners and provided significantly improved outcomes for patients.”
