George Bryan Centre – help us find a long-term solution
Early in 2019, the West wing of the George Bryan Centre was destroyed by fire.
After the fire, temporary arrangements were put in place. Anyone living in Burton upon Trent, Lichfield, Tamworth and surrounding areas who needed an inpatient stay was admitted to St George’s Hospital in Stafford, and enhanced community mental health services provided support to enable people to stay in their own home.
A series of engagement events took place in 2019 to understand people’s views about the services and where improvements could be made to help shape the long-term solutions. The report was published on the Together We’re Better website >
The MPFT Board received a report detailing the outcomes of an exercise MPFT had undertaken, and agreed to support the system-wide exercise to determine the long-term solution for those services. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed further public engagement, but we are now ready to restart the process to find the long-term solution for the George Bryan Centre.
View the report detailing the outcomes of the MPFT exercise >
We are keen to hear from people about their experiences of mental health services since the fire, as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the beginning of this year, we have been working with existing service users, carers and staff to find a way to realise locally, the national vision for a place-based community mental health model. This has resulted in a proposed new model that will be refined over the next three years.
Watch a video explaining the local community health transformation (opens in new window) >
Listening to your views
Time has passed since we held our events, so we want to continue our conversation to understand if there is anything new we should consider before we begin work to develop our final proposals. We want to listen to:
- People who live in Burton upon Trent, Lichfield, Tamworth and surrounding areas who have used community mental health services and their carers since February 2019
- People who have been an inpatient of St George’s Hospital, Stafford, since February 2019 and their carers
- People who may need mental health services in the future
- Anyone working in mental health services and organisations that support people who access these services.
We want to know:
- Your experiences of community mental health services since February 2019
- Your experience of St George’s Hospital since 2019
- If there is anything we need to think about when we plan how to provide these services in the future.
We will be holding two virtual events on 14 and 18 October to gather your feedback. Both events will be the same, so you only need to attend one. Book your place today and make your voice count (opens in new window) >
If you cannot attend these events, we are still really keen to hear from you. We will be launching a short online questionnaire to gather your comments – this is another chance to have your say. The questionnaire is available on the above webpage, and will close at midnight on 31 October 2021. If you need help completing it, please call 0333 150 2155 or email: mlcsu.involvement@nhs.net.
What happens next
After this phase of involvement, we will analyse all the comments received. Our clinicians and professionals will use these comments alongside detailed analysis and data to develop a business case containing our final proposals. This business case will be taken to the Board of MPFT and the Governing Bodies of the CCGs for a discussion.
This is likely to take several months, as we want to get this right. Once the business case has been approved, we will want to involve service users, carers, staff and other interested groups again before any decisions are made. We have not made any decisions yet and are still looking at the different ways we can provide mental health services for you.