City and Hackney Mental Health Alliance wins HSJ award for Mental Health Innovation of the Year
City and Hackney Mental Health Alliance wins HSJ award for Mental Health Innovation of the Year
Joint action to improve the physical health of those patients in City and Hackney dealing with serious mental illness has earned top recognition in the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards 2019.
City and Hackney GP Confederation, working with partners in the City and Hackney Primary Care Mental Health Alliance, won the Mental Health Innovation of the Year award. The alliance was also Highly Commended under the categories: Community Primary Care Service Redesign and Primary Care Innovation of the Year.
The award and commendations recognised the work done in City and Hackney to:
- Improve physical health for people with serious mental illness;
- Reduce the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication;
- Reduce duplication, by standardising primary and secondary health check systems;
- Improve mental wellbeing of patients; and,
- Improve access to community services for these patients.
The Mental Health Alliance partners are City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG); City and Hackney Clinical Excellence Group (CEG), Core Sport, NHS East London Foundation Trust and City and Hackney GP Confederation. The alliance brought together GP practices, the secondary care mental health trust, healthcare informatics, diet and exercise providers and the CCG.
City and Hackney GP Confederation practice support manager, Amaia Portelli said: “This area has the fifth highest prevalence of serious mental illness in England. Between 2018-19, 71.6% of patients in this group received a full physical health check in City and Hackney – the highest coverage in the country. This achievement recognises of the huge effort made by City and Hackney and our GPs, to engage with patients to improve their health.”