We are delighted to welcome Hampshire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) colleagues from Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust who join us from today. This is the first phase of Project Fusion in bringing together all of the community, mental health, and learning disability services into Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on April 1.
Colleagues joining from Sussex Partnership will enable us to bring together all mental health services for young people, and to provide real benefits for them when they are at their most vulnerable. Ron Shields, our Chief Exec and Chief Exec designate for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I would like to extend a warm welcome to Sussex Partnership colleagues. I am excited about the contribution they will make towards Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust being the best place to work and to provide care.”
Robert Guile, Director of Operations: Specialist Services at Southern Health, is excited at the move and committed to working in an inclusive, compassionate, and open way with all colleagues. Robert said: “I consider my role and responsibilities are to support all colleagues to have access to the resources required to best serve our patients and carers.”
Dr Mandy Burton, Clinical Director at Hampshire CAMHS, is also excited to be moving over to Southern Health, which will become the new organisation. Mandy said: “Working with our partners for the needs of the local population is key to what we want to do, and we feel being based in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight locality will help us build and strengthen partnerships.
"We all have similar values and want to enable more young people to access our services and get the right assessment, treatment and intervention and support them on their road to recovery in terms of their mental health.”
Lao Cooper, Head of Service at Hampshire CAMHS, said: "I do think it's the right time for Hampshire CAMHS to move across to Southern Health and then subsequently the new community trust that's been developed because that organisation will have a specific focus around Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and I think inevitably that will bring benefits for our service and for the young people that we support.
"I think the benefits are going to be vast, I think some of them won't be measurable in the normal ways but it will enable people to work more closely together and instead of needing to travel a couple of hours to get to where we might need to, there's a potential that some of these things might be just around the corner from ourselves and that's going to help build relationships and get people working more closely together."
Stephanie Brown, Trainee Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, said: "I'm looking forward to it. It's always good meeting new people and working with new professionals and joining up with different people and I'm looking forward to the more local joined up approach."
Laura Croucher, Learning Disability Practitioner at Fareham and Gosport CAMHS, said: "I'm excited because I think being part of the new Trust will let us work more closely with the adult learning disability services within the area, allowing us to develop better relationships.