Living Well Network Alliance

Lambeth’s community has a history of striving for better mental wellbeing for all. The Lambeth Collaborative co-created a vision for mental health support in the Borough:

That it will create the context in which every citizen, whatever their abilities or disabilities, can flourish, contribute to society and live the life they want to lead.

For some time now those who use, provide and plan services have been working together to agree a new approach in Lambeth that helps people to recover and stay well, make their own choices and participate in daily life on an equal footing. Based on what we’ve heard, we are designing services to be more joined up, quicker and easier to access and more focussed on prevention, avoiding crises and unnecessary admissions to hospital. Fundamentally, the Living Well Network Alliance believes that we are more likely to achieve the Lambeth vision for good mental wellbeing by working together to a set of common goals and a clear purpose.

Why do we need to change?

Change is necessary because people don’t always get the choice they should; organisations don’t always work together as well as they could, and; as a result, people do not live as well as they might. We know that some people, for example those from black African and Caribbean communities, are less likely to get the active support they need to live well and are more likely to receive support in ways that suit the providers rather than users of services. People tell us they want more options for support when they are in crisis and that they wish teams could work more closely together. And we have to make the most of the money we have.

What are we trying to do?

The aim of the Living Well Network Alliance is to join up services around the needs of those who use them; providing easier access and better services and making best use of the ‘public pound’. This is an approach that is designed around the people who need services, not the organisations that provide them.

This will make it easier and quicker for people who use services to get the help they need and reduce repeated assessments and unnecessary referrals from one part of the system to another. The new approach will allow specialist NHS and local authority staff to spend more of their time doing what they were trained for and will increase the involvement of the voluntary and community sector where this makes sense. Importantly, this new way will treat those who use services as equal partners, recognising that they come with strengths and involving them in the design and development of services generally and their own care in particular.

Want to find out more and get involved?

If you want to get involved please click here.