Mental health 'twilight shift' move for Telford's Princess Royal Hospital

The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital has round-the-clock capacity to assess patients who may have psychological issues, but the Telford hospital only has coverage for 12 hours a day,

Outside those times patients are served by an on-call service.

Cathy Riley, of the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Care Group at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust which operates the county's mental health services, said an additional 8pm-2am service will be introduced in the coming months.

She added that a request will be made to the local Clinical Commissioning Group to maintain it in the longer term.

Speaking during a discussion of the foundation trust's winter “surge plan” Ms Riley said mental health liaison services were commissioned differently at the two Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust sites.

“Whereas in RSH, we’ve got a 24-7 service, we’re only commissioned for an 8am-8pm service in the PRH, with our crisis service getting called in outside of those hours,” she said.

She said demand had changed and the frequency of calls originating from the Telford hospital between 8pm and 2pm had increased, “so a ‘twilight shift’ is going to be provided during the winter and, actually, we’re going to propose to the CCG that that becomes substantive”.

MPFT runs mental health, physical health, learning disability and adult social care services primarily across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

Ms Riley also told the trust board: “Recurrent funding is being given for two additional dementia nurses to provide input into the new hospital avoidance scheme in the community in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.”

She said these would work closely with both councils and Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, “so more patients can be cared for at home rather than being admitted to SaTH”.