Derbyshire Mental Health Services Trust
Derbyshire Mental Health Services Trust was established with the core purpose of improving the mental health and well-being of the people of Derbyshire and to provide them with effective, accessible and modern mental health and learning disability services.
The Challenge
Derbyshire Mental Health Services Trust’s catchment area is approximately 990,000 people: 1 in 4 of whom will experience mental healthcare needs and 1 in 7 of whom will require admission for serious mental healthcare.
Given that mental illness has the potential to touch such a vast proportion of people in the region, the Trust wanted to be proactive in analysing their catchment, understanding their community’s mental health needs and providing the necessary comprehensive resources for patients, carers and families.
The Solution
With Prospex, the Trust is able to easily map locations of current Trust properties across the East Midlands and identify trends and hotspots in mental health issues in relation to the locality of patients to Trust properties, services and employees.
By plotting Trust locations and analysing this against patient data, their referral location and their degree of mental illness, patterns and densities can be established and evaluated.
The Benefits
These patterns help plot mental health inequalities in terms of geography (where no services, facilities or resources are available to a particular ward or postcode) and in terms of individuals (where access to services may be restricted for certain groups of people - particularly Black and minority ethnic communities including those of Irish and Mediterranean origin and East European migrants).
This not only allows the Trust to target resources better by providing relevant help and literature to areas identified as most at risk from substance misuse or violence for example but also allows the Trust to better plan for future build locations, service provisions and resource allocation leading to better administration and routing of referrals in line with the NHS operating framework.
As Prospex gives a visual illustration of the services the Trust provides over a set period of time, it is much more compelling than a simple spreadsheet or graph. The ability to map patient activity and employee locality to identify areas where team bases may need to be relocated saves both time and money and ultimately allows the Trust to provide a better level of customer service.
In short, Prospex assists the Trust in making difficult decisions about investment priorities for mental health and the reconfiguration and redesign of existing provision to ensure continued financial viability while maintaining the standard and quality of mental health services.
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