Crisis point
Community-based supported housing services are urgently needed to reduce pressure on hospitals, particularly when it comes to young people experiencing mental health crises
STRATEGY
Image: Look Ahead
Crisis point
Community-based supported housing services are urgently needed to reduce pressure on hospitals, particularly when it comes to young people experiencing mental health crises
Image: Look Ahead
STRATEGY
Chris Hampson
CEO, Look Ahead
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Issue 65 | April 2023
Every organisation is facing tough budget decisions for the next financial year as we try to balance the books in the context of the cost-of-living crisis.
The housing and support sector is grappling with big questions. Big questions like do we invest in new homes or spend more on the sustainability of existing homes? How do we support both colleagues and residents? And as we saw from the recent Homeless Link Research, can we actually afford to continue to provide our services without substantial uplifts?
What is definite however, is that the development of new supported housing still needs to feature in housing association plans. More to the point, the NHS and local authorities need this – and therefore us – more than ever.
The need for community-based crisis services
With the evolution of Integrated Care Boards and the backlogs for routine care in the NHS at an all-time high, people need to be supported to remain in their own homes. And as our new report ‘Away from Hospital and into the Community’ launched last month found, we aren’t just talking about traditional types of supported housing here.
The report looked at the provision of services for young people experiencing a mental health crisis. Working alongside the NHS, Look Ahead already delivers more than 40 community-based mental health services and services for young people and care leavers. We commissioned this research following repeated approaches from commissioners who were at a loss for where to house these young people due to a lack of suitable accommodation.
The research was generously supported by the Wates Family Enterprise Trust and conducted by Care Research. In addition to desk-based research, it drew on a series of in-depth interviews with young people, parents, carers, and more than 20 NHS and social care staff, and found that Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments had become an ‘accidental hub’ for these young people despite being ill-equipped to help those in crisis.
We found that access to in-patient services is prohibited for all with the exception of those with the most complex of mental health needs. The thresholds are high and the resulting gaps in provision, stark. We heard harrowing reports from parents at their wits end. Parents like Penny, whose son was suicidal and taken to the hospital but sent back home, shared with us, “I felt lonely and just petrified that I was going to lose him.”
The main recommendation from the report was that there is a real need for alternative community-based crisis services, including supported housing outside of hospital settings. It found that such services would reduce pressure on A&E departments and could reduce costs by more than 50%.
Overwhelmingly, those interviewed believed that community services that offered people a home away from home could provide better treatment to young people at crisis point and ensure fewer of them reach crisis in the first place.
“The research found that Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments had become an ‘accidental hub’ for these young people despite being ill-equipped to help those in crisis.”
Meeting needs
As with the NHS, I know that housing associations are equally under increasing pressure, particularly to get the basics right. However, having spent longer in the housing and support sector than I would care to admit, I believe the basics should also involve the development of supported housing.
We don’t expect all associations to be interested in the delivery of support (particularly at a higher acuity level) but we do need associations with the scale, resource and influence to work with us to meet the development needs of the NHS and other partners.
So, when you’re finalising your strategic plans, please don’t forget supported housing. As a sector, we need to pull together to appeal to Homes England to set grant levels for supported housing at a higher rate. Without this we won’t be able to meet the needs of the NHS and provide the community-based supported housing services that are desperately needed by people like Penny and her family.
