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Birmingham and Solihull Mental health NHS Foundation Trust
Better Together
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Street Triage

In January 2014 BSMHFT joined forces with West Midlands Police and West Midlands Ambulance Service to launch a pilot Street Triage scheme. This sees a mental health nurse, paramedic and police officer together in one vehicle responding to 999 calls, where it’s believed people need immediate mental health support.

The model of the triage implementation has been:

  • A Street Triage car will work from 10am until 3am seven days a week
  • The service is staffed by four mental health nurses, six police constables, one police sergeant and three ambulance paramedics
  • Deployed in a plain ambulance response vehicle
Urgent care
  • Creates a vehicle able to deal with physical and mental health issues.
  • Deployment under guidance of police/ambulance service control rooms.
     
  • To conduct a face to face assessment on the street
  • Undertake a mental health assessment
  • Undertake a review of risk, threat and harm to the person concerned and others, with the members of the Street Triage team to provide a holistic approach
  • Consider pathways for diversion if appropriate
  • Enhance the capacity of the service to deliver out of hours
  • Create a conduit for information sharing and ensure pathways provided are acted upon
  • Deliver a compassionate and caring approach to mental ill health.
  • To conduct a face to face assessment on the street
  • Undertake a physical health assessment
  • Undertake a review of risk, threat and harm to the person concerned and others, with the members of the Street Triage team to provide a holistic approach
  • Reduce the need to be treated in A&E
  • Instigate multidisciplinary team to high demand service users
  • Create a conduit for information sharing with ambulance service and GPs and ensure acute care pathways provided are acted upon
  • Deliver a compassionate and caring approach to mental ill health.
  • To ensure public safety and safety to the person
  • To consider the need for detainment under Section 136.
  • Cultural shift that improves quality delivery
  • Stronger partnership collaboration
  • Developing wider intelligence and information sharing including A&E departments, GPs, Public Health England and NHS England
  • Developing Joint Strategic Needs Assessments
  • Improved outcomes for individuals including patients and carers
  • Improving engagement with black and minority ethnic communities.

Between January 2014 (when the team began) to November 2015:

  • 4,652 incidents have been attended
  • Over 1,000 patients have been diverted from emergency departments due to the involvement of the ambulance paramedic on the team
  • In the first year of its operation there was a 50% reduction in Section 136 detainments due to the positive interventions of the team at the scene of acrisis.