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KS2 Bath carers group, working in collaboration with St Mungo’s, held their third ‘What’s Going On’ event on Wed 17th Nov 2021 at the Salvation Army, central Bath. The event was funded by Healthwatch BANES Community Pot.
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Event aim: To create an opportunity for anyone affected by mental health issues to talk directly with mental health service providers and commissioners to find out about and discuss what’s going on in the Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) area.
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Prior to the event, KS2 Bath and St Mungo's listened to 91 local people, who shared their personal views, experiences and ideas on accessing mental health and wellbeing services in BANES. The experiences of service users and carers were captured via a survey (paper-based and online format) and 6 focus groups. This feedback was then used to inform the event and the themes for discussion.
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'What's Going On' event:
The event enabled people to hear, from people directly responsible for services, about what they provide and their plans for the future; giving people affected by mental health issues the opportunity to give direct feedback and ask questions.
The service providers that attended were:
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Rachel Redman, Clinical Lead for BANES, Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) NHS Trust
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Justin Wride, Head of Wellbeing Services, BANES Community Health and Care Services, Virgin Care
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Kate Morton, Chief Executive, Bath Mind
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After short presentations. The service providers spent time at each of the discussion groups, listening to those with lived experience and answering questions.
The themes for the discussion groups were:
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Managing own mental health and wellbeing in the community
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Collaboration of organisations
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Crisis support, inpatient care and discharge planning
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The value of involvement / co-production in services + equal access to services and meeting the needs of person-centred care
To read more about the discussions, reflections and actions from service providers and our recommendations, click the reports below.
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Outcomes:
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34 participants; mental health providers, service users and supporters all learning from each other.
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Increased awareness of current mental health services and future transformation plans in B&NES.
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An event where every individual taking part was equal.
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Service users, carers (and supporters) shared their lived experience with service providers, through the facilitation of open and honest discussions.
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An event rated as ‘very enjoyable’ and ‘very useful’ by the majority of participants.
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Feedback:
Quotes from participant feedback forms (anonymised):
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“Excellent organisation and participative event. Well done. Let's do it again”
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“VERY disappointed that no commissioners attended. How will the culture change if the people with the power don't bother to listen”
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“A well-managed event. Thanks”
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“Lovely to see so many people passionate about mental health”
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“We should do it more often and on a bigger scale. We must use information to improve things”
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“It would be useful/productive for these awareness events to be more frequent”
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“Fantastic to hear the summaries from service providers and what they have learnt and will take away”​
“Hopefully, we can have more sessions like this, as both the short presentations and the working groups gave a good balance between receiving and feeding back on information”.
Helen Watts, Development Manager, BANES Carers’ Centre.
Summary Report
(5 pages)
Full Report
(33 pages, including appendixes)
'What's Going On' events
2015 & 2019
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Over ninety service users and carers attended the ‘What’s Going On’ events held in May 2015 & Feb 2019. These were put on by Carers group KS2 with support from St Mungo's, AWP and other mental health organisations. At the events we heard directly from mental health commissioners in, the Chief Executive and Directors of AWP, along with other mental health service leads. Service commissioners and leads then moved between tables, each discussing a different topic.
