Our Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs) provide assessment, diagnosis, treatment and follow up to people with severe and complex mental health conditions in a community setting. It forms part of the wider Wirral All Age Disability Service.

Our CMHTs are multi-disciplinary, which means they have staff from a range of different health professions. The teams consist of a range of skilled staff, including:

  • Consultant psychiatrists
  • Approved Mental Health Practitioners
  • Psychologists
  • Social workers
  • Occupational therapists
  • Nurses
  • Support workers and family support workers

The CMHTs will: 

  • Provide prompt and expert assessment of people who are referred to the service.
  • Plan and work with health colleagues to provide effective, evidence-based treatments.
  • Plan and work with health colleagues to provide support, advice and information to service users and Carers to help them cope with and manage their condition.
  • Plan and work with health colleagues to help service users sustain their recovery.
  • Establish a detailed understanding of all local resources relevant to support individuals, and promote effective inter-agency working.
  • Maintain a detailed understanding of the diversity of the local population, and provide a service that is sensitive to these needs.
  • Ensure the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children.
  • Proactively work and collaborate with partners to ensure that service users, who no longer need the service, are discharged to appropriate agencies.
  • Visit service users in a variety of places, including at home
  • Support service users to be as independent as is possible
  • Monitor medication

Careplan

Service users with a high level of needs are allocated a care coordinator who will work in partnership with the service user to develop a personalised careplan that meets their needs. The different parts of the careplan will include:

  • Description of the problem
  • Any risks involved
  • The service user’s strengths
  • What needs to be done to help the service user recover
  • Who should be doing what
  • The service user’s and the carer’s views (which will then be written down and given to all those involved including the service user and carers)

Our CMHTs will work with anyone aged 18 or over at the time of referral, who is experiencing any of the following:

  • Severe and complex mental health conditions associated with significant disability including psychosis, bipolar disorder, severe depression, severe anxiety disorders and personality disorder. 
  • Longer-term conditions of lesser severity but which are characterised by poor treatment adherence (pharmacological or psychosocial) requiring follow-up
  • Service users requiring interventions under the Mental Health Act (1983)
  • People with dementia with complex health, behavioural or social care needs, where there is a need for specialist advice, treatment or intervention

To access this service, please speak to a GP. They will be able to refer you if they think our service can help. 

If you are referred, a letter will be sent back to your GP after every assessment, describing the problem and providing advice about management. Your GP is still responsible for the prescription of medication that may be advised by a psychiatrist. Unless admitted to hospital, your GP remains responsible for the rest of the medical care, though shared care of some problems are encouraged.