The NHS Long Term Plan’s commitment to create new and integrated models of primary and community mental health care will see a major expansion in the adult and older adult community mental health workforce. Over time, these models will see a significant proportion of community mental health staff become integrated within primary care, to provide better support to patients and the primary care workforce.

TPHC agreed to explore non-clinical roles across London and share good practice.

Exploring different peer and community connector roles in London

Across London there are a range of non-clinical ‘community connection’ roles that are supporting people with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) or complex mental health (MH) needs to transform the way that we deliver community MH services. For more information see the Community Mental Health Framework for Adults and Older Adults.

As the community MH transformation work develops there is a wealth of expertise, experience and good practice examples that can be shared across London to strengthen this work going forward.

Transformation Partners in Health and Care has interviewed people currently working in these roles and clinical leads to explore:

• The different roles and responsibilities across London and how each benefit and contribute to supporting a person with SMI and the wider community MH transformation.
• How these roles add value to a multidisciplinary community MH team- identifying what works well and areas of development to effectively integrate these roles.
• The supporting infrastructure, leadership and personal & professional development that is required to ensure that these roles are effective, add value and are sustainable.

Below are links to the videos and posters which cover the three key themes:

1- Exploring different peer and lived experience roles

2- Integrating peer and lived experience roles into a multi-disciplinary team

3- The infrastructure, leadership and development of peer support and lived experience roles