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Local Adult Specialist Mental Health and Addiction Service: Change Proposal Summary

Tēnā koutou kātoa, 
 

As you are aware, the Mental Health and Addiction Change Programme is working to roll out a system of care to better meet the needs of our communities, in line with the national focus on providing care closer to home and in more integrated ways.  

This includes the redesign of secondary mental health and addiction services. To achieve this, we have engaged in a codesign process, including a series of design workshops earlier in the year. We have worked alongside stakeholders and priority partners including Māori, Pacific, those with lived experience, and people with disabilities. 

Many of you were involved in this process. We would like to thank you for sharing your expertise and ideas to help create a vision for the future of local specialist mental health and addiction services.  

This information was used to create a proposal for how a redesigned service could look, which was shared with MHAIDS kaimahi for consultation last week. 

We are excited to share with you a summary of the changes it proposes. The summary outlines the suggested model of care, service delivery model, and what we hope these changes will achieve. 
 
Read a summary of the proposed changes in our summary document. 
 

What’s new 

Key features of the change proposal include: 

  • Three localities will be established across the Wellington region, within which six local home bases, located in the current adult community mental health team bases, will operate. Staff will work from these bases to provide the specialist mental health functions needed by tāngata whaiora in each community. 
  • Each home base will be organised around three core functions: First Response, Local Mental Health and Addiction, and Primary Care and Community Transitions 
  • The home bases will offer flexible opening hours, which will be mapped according to local area need 
  • We are proposing to close the Crisis Resolution Service and Te Haika, and integrate their functions into the home bases 
  • A new model of care for general adult mental health care is being proposed, Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) 

  • More emphasis on workforce and leadership, with an expanded clinical and operational leadership structure and dedicated training and development workstream. 

Timeline and next steps 

  • 20 June – 14 July: 4-week consultation period with staff. Feedback collected and used to inform final decisions. 
  • 8 August: Decision document (including implementation plan) and final operating framework released. 
  • Mid-August: Summary of outcomes will be sent out to external stakeholders. 
If you would like to give feedback on the direction of change, or have any questions, please email our Change Programme team MHAchange@ccdhb.org.nz. 
 

If you have been forwarded this email by a colleague, feel free to sign up to receive emails directly. 

Wakaiti Saba                                              Alastair Willis
Group Manager                                         Clinical Director              
Mental Health and Addiction Services                    
 
 
Last updated 17 August 2024.