Admission Prevention and Rapid Response Services - Mental Health

The Admission Prevention Service (APS), commissioned to the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, delivers interventions to service users that prevent an admission to an acute mental health hospital. The APS works with service users identified by NSFT's Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs) who are "highly likely" to need admission if support is not provided to help them stay well. Interventions support persons; in crisis, with emotional and practical support, medication prompts and observation, daily life skills and activities, with housing or budgeting, to develop social and community groups, benefit applications, establishment of banking facilities and accessing adult education. The service supports individuals in crisis from presentations of crisis from anxiety through to suicidal ideation, self-harm and personality disorder etc. The 1 hour Rapid Response service offers a county wide response and integrated offer to support other secondary services. The service supports East of England Ambulance Trusts and NSFT's Mental Health Joint Response Car (MHJRC) to prevent and avoid unnecessary conveyance to Accident and Emergency (A&E) and admission to acute mental health services. The service does this by offering assessment, investigation to a service user's needs and providing brief interventions to help de-escalate crisis and signpost to a wide range of community resources. As appropriate, the service supports EEAST ambulance and Police crews time on scene, aiding in a reduction of Section 136 and Police voluntary attendance at A&E. Additional information: The contract with the supplier will be awarded for an initial one year term (until the end of March 2023), at which point (if the pilot is deemed a success), the Trust plan on conducting a procurement process to identify the Most Economically Advantageous service provider for a longer contract term.