One in four people will experience poor mental health during their lifetime. People with learning disabilities or autism are much more likely to develop mental health problems than other people.
The benefits of good mental health care are clear – it improves people’s lives, increases their life chances and has a positive effect on families and communities.
However, one in four people will experience poor mental health during their lifetime. People with learning disabilities or autism are much more likely to develop mental health problems than other people.
This very often has an impact on other areas of people’s health and wellbeing.
People with severe mental health issues are much more likely to develop preventable, long-term physical illness. They experience significant health and social inequalities during their lives, and they are also likely to die 15 to 20 years earlier than other people.
If we don’t give people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and/or autism the right support, this affects all of our health and social care services.
The providers of mental health, learning disability and autism services cannot deliver the health and wellbeing outcomes that our communities need by working alone.
The story so far…
Our service users and carers have told us that health and care organisations must work together to fill in the gaps between services and improve care.
Service users and carers have walked the path and the journeys they have made are as important as the outcomes they’ve achieved. We therefore know that if we want to improve and develop care pathways, services and outcomes, it is only by basing our work on people’s experiences and lives that we can really make a difference.
That’s why co-production – health professionals, service users and carers working in partnership to find shared solutions together – is always at the heart of what we do.
For several years we have worked together in partnership to provide better services for people in Northamptonshire. This has supported more people to get access to the help they need.
This collaborative approach is essential as we continue to improve mental health, learning disability and autism services and outcomes across Northamptonshire.
What’s next?
We are committed to working together to deliver better health and wellbeing outcomes for our community by providing the mental health, learning disability and autism services that we know people need.
Our communities have told us that they want the care and support they receive to be:
Meaningful - Service users and carers want their care and support to be more focused on their health and wellbeing outcomes. They want services to measure success against the things that matter to them.
Person-centred - Service users and carers want us to build our services around their needs. They want their care and support to be joined up so everyone can have their health and care needs met in one plan.
Agile - Service users and carers want our services to be ready to respond and adapt quickly to new and changing needs.
Secure - Service users and carers want us to protect the services and initiatives that they value the most.
Intelligent - Service users and carers want us to get better at sharing and joining-up skills, intelligence and data to make sure we give them the best support possible.
You can find out more about our collaborative work to improve local mental health, learning disability and autism services in this video:
Help us improve mental health, learning disability and autism services
If you are interested in helping us to improve mental health, learning disability and autism services for people in Northamptonshire, please fill in our engagement and involvement form.
The Mental Health Inpatient and Rehabilitation Quality Improvement Strategy (2024-2027)
The Mental Health Inpatient and Rehabilitation Quality Improvement Strategy provides Northamptonshire’s vision and mission to improve the quality of our mental health inpatient services over the next three years to ensure that the service is local, inclusive and deliver safe, personalised and therapeutic care to service users and carers.
Kirstie Pope has often encountered difficulties engaging with health and care services in the way they have been offered to her - but by sharing her experiences she is helping services to overcome these barriers together.
Here Kirstie talks about how reasonable adjustments completely transformed her experience of care in Northamptonshire.
Service user Chrissy Kelly and care service manager Julie Lee talk about how Chrissy's move to a supported living bungalow has helped her to gain independence.
Mental health service user and expert by experience Sophie Green talks about her experiences of using mental health services in Northamptonshire, and how she is helping to provide a voice for others as part of work to develop and improve these services.
