North London NHS Foundation Trust urged to address issue by councillors amid lack of supported housing, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Councillors have told a North London mental health trust to better demonstrate how it is improving amid concerns around the discharge of vulnerable people.

A joint health overview and scrutiny committee, made up of councillors from Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Camden and Islington councils, met on Thursday (22nd) to discuss a new report from North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT).

The trust was launched in November following a merger between Barnet, Enfield and Haringey (BEH) and Camden and Islington mental health trusts.

Committee chair Pippa Connor said councillors had raised concerns around a lack of supported housing for discharged mental health patients from the two previously separate trusts.

However, she said the newly-merged trust’s 2024/25 report didn’t outline any “specific personal collaboration with housing authorities to increase supported housing availability”.

The trust’s chief medical officer, Vincent Kirchner, said supported housing did “continue to be a problem” and a “very very difficult one to solve”.

He told the committee: “We are really stuck on the supported housing issue and we would welcome any help in trying to build that, we haven’t had any significant changes that we’ve been able to affect on increasing supported housing.”

Committee member Matt White highlighted “quite stark changes” over the last two years in the number of out-of-area placements, where patients are sent to mental health inpatient units far from their local area.

The number of such placements reached nearly 700 in May 2024 and then dropped to zero by November. Since November it has increased to around 150.

Cllr White said: “We’ve got a narrative [in the report] which doesn’t really explain the reasons for those changes. It states an aim to reduce OAPs [out-of-area placements] that doesn’t really go into detail about how you plan to do that.”

Dr Kirchner said the trust had been able to maintain a lower level of out-of-area placements through introducing a new model of care which brings a “daily rhythm” to ward and “daily decision making”.

He pointed out that nationally there had been a much “greater demand” for mental health services, particularly following the pandemic, and inpatient beds weren’t being built but in fact “coming down”.

Committee member Chris James said some of the data in the report, unless read by an expert “didn’t mean anything” and more context would help.

She added the improvements in out-of-area placement figures was “really good” and needed to be highlighted.

Cllr Connor said having a more joined-up approach in terms of how patent information was shared between GPs, carers and families was an issue discussed last year.

Dr Kirchner acknowledged a lot of carers and families felt “excluded” but this work wasn’t being measured as it depended on which service was involved or the age of the patient.

Cllr Connor recommended this be tracked in future.

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