The Green Light for Mental Health Project

My name is Gwen Ncube. I have been working on a piece of work named the Green Light Project. The Partnership Board paid money to Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust so the project could happen. My job is to look at how people with a learning disability are helped when they have a mental health problem.

I have come here to tell you: What the Green Light Project is. What I have done. Where we are now. What happens next.

Anyone can have a mental health problem at any time of their life Anyone can have a mental health problem at any time of their life. This includes people with learning disabilities. People with a mental health problem need help from different people to get better and stay well.

The Government wants to make sure that people with learning disabilities can access the mental health services that they need. This includes using the same mental health services as people without learning disabilities.

This means that: Mental health services must help people with learning disabilities with their mental health. When it is not safe or right for people with learning disabilities to use mental health services, learning disability services must be good at helping those people to get better.

A report was written which said what makes a good mental health service. This report is called the Green Light Toolkit. This helps people who provide mental health services to work out whether they are providing good mental health services for people with learning disabilities.

The Green Light Toolkit uses standards The Green Light Toolkit uses standards. A standard says what needs to be done to provide a good service. There are 39 standards in the Green Light Toolkit. The standards are about: All the people providing services for people with learning disabilities and mental health problems working together. This is called local partnerships Planning good services

Getting access to mental health services How good the mental health services are for people with learning disabilities Care planning

Involvement Staff, money and information

The work I have been doing has used the toolkit to: Find out how good mental health services are for people with learning disabilities in Northamptonshire. Look at ways that people can work together to provide good mental health services.

We have also set up working groups to work on developing a pathways We have also set up working groups to work on developing a pathways. This will make easier for people to get the help they need quickly and from the right people. The pathway from primary services needs a little bit more work before it can be used. I have also with staff who work in mental health services to find out what they need to make services better for people with learning disabilities.

They said: Advice and support from learning disability services. Extra staff and training to help people with learning disabilities properly.

. They also want: Agreements so that services can work together without arguments. Agreements to be made about when it is not safe for someone with a learning disability to use mental health services.

Where we are now. Local services have been measured against standards in the Green Light Toolkit again. A standard says what needs to be done to provide a good service. There are 39 standards.

We found: There were 10 standards where nothing was being done. There were 21standards where something was being done. There was only 8 standards where everything was being done.

The results show that more work needs to happen in Northamptonshire to help people with learning disabilities to get the best support for their mental health.

What happens next There are some important things that must happen to make sure that people with learning disabilities get the mental health services they need. People will get together to make sure that all the work is done. These are called working groups. They will look at developing care pathways for people with learning disabilities and mental health problems.

We would like to find out from people with learning disabilities what they think of mental health services. We would like to find out from people with learning disabilities what they want from mental health services.

Other things I have done I have helped design a easy read for the community mental health welcome pack. This help people with learning disabilities use community mental health services better.

I will come back in September to let you know how the project is progressing.