Welcome to our April Newsletter

Welcome to Our April Newsletter
New Opportunities 

Interim Chief Executive and Managing Director

Living Well Consortium (LWC) is delighted to announce the appointment of Graham Beaumont, retired chief executive of Health Exchange CIC, as the new chief executive of the consortium.

Graham will oversee the development of new opportunities for the consortium and set, with the board, the strategic direction for the consortium.

Graham can be contacted on: graham.beaumont@livingwell-consortium.com

Joining Graham at Avoca Court will be Ben Howells, regional manager for Aquarius, who will be taking up the role of part-time managing director. Ben’s email contact is ben.howells@livingwell-consortium.com and his CV is also on the living well consortium website.

Ben and Graham are delighted to be joining the existing team at the consortium and will be working with the board and member organisations to strengthen the position of the consortium and open up further opportunities for business growth for members.

Opportunities in the Main IAPT Contract

At the end of the 20 17-18 year the consortium undertook an analysis of the referrals to both of the main IAPT contracts. The emerging data has identified that an alternative financial model will need to be implemented, rapidly, to reflect the nature of the clients being referred to the service and the complexity of the service requirements.

This work is underway currently and provider members will be notified at the next provider meeting. The aim of this piece of work is that no provider will be worse off than under the current models but that we can incentivise the provision of more complex integrated services for clients.As part of the analysis there has been three identified gaps in the current service offer.

Each of the gaps is geographic and reflects the historic growth of mental health and counselling services across Birmingham.The three areas with clear gaps in service are:·  Sutton Coldfield, Tyburn, Erdington

• East Birmingham including Kitts Green, Bordesley
• Selly Oak and University of Birmingham

In recognition of this need the clinical lead for the consortium, Patrick Kwesiga, is planning to support one or more of the following three approaches:

1. Identifying an existing provider interested in growing their work into a new geography, through a commitment to the development of wider provision in that area.
2. Identifying an existing member of the consortium, not currently delivering IAPT services, but based in one of the geographies, to build a partnership for growth with an existing provider/
3. Identifying a non-member, able to deliver IAPT services, who may wish to join the consortium.

If you have an interest in developing your service in one or all of these areas and fit the criteria outlined above please contact Patrick Kwesiga at the LWC offices on 0121 663 1217 or by email to Patrick Kwesiga patrick.kwesiga@livingwell-consortium.com

Opportunities for New Triage Services

The consortium has now concluded a lengthy consultation with colleagues in Worcestershire. We will be undertaking the triage service for the existing IAPT healthy minds contract for the county. This is an exciting opportunity for growth and represents the first significant development of provision outside the Birmingham area.

We were able to secure the contract to our existing model of triage support in IAPT and our experience of delivering triage through the Edgbaston well-being hub programme. The project is being led, for the consortium, by Nadia Guddam and we are now seeking to identify a suitable qualified Clinical Manager for the service and up to 7 telephone triage practitioners.

This is an initial one-year contract with a view to future commissioning, subject to the success of the programme. The service is due to go live in June 2018 and therefore we are seeking a very fast turnaround to identify staffing.

If you are an existing provider of IAPT services or you currently intend to develop into this area of work and have staff who are suitably qualified; this is the opportunity for you.

The consortium will establish a VOIP based triage call centre, based in the city centre or with a partner organisation who has an existing fibre broadband connection into their building.

The requirement for staff the service is that all should be IAPT trained and qualified and the clinical lead should be a high intensity IAPT practitioner with supervision skills. The consortium will undertake the technical work to establish the call centre and the training programme for staff to undertake the triage work. The work to mobilise the service will commence in May and therefore staff who are identified will need to be available to join the team at the latest by 5 May.

If you are interested in this opportunity please contact Nadia Guddam by email Nadia.Guddam@livingwell-consortium.com by Thursday 19th of April.