South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Supporting the mental wellbeing of communities through technology

What problem was the trust looking to solve?

Throughout the pandemic there has been a significant impact on mental wellbeing, whether through the virus itself, the impact on jobs and the economy, self-isolation or the tragedy of losing a loved one. It is also known COVID-19 has a disproportionate impact on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. The wider impact on mental wellbeing as the country faces such pressures, created an urgency to address how health and care services can work together to protect communities’ mental health as result of COVID-19.

What was the trust's response?

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) jointly with its local authorities Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark hosted the first virtual COVID-19 Preventing a Mental Health Crisis Summit on 2 June 2020. This was achieved, via technology platform Microsoft Teams, as a public live broadcast event, which was attended by around 1,000 people. The organisation rose to the challenge of bringing people together virtually, both within and outside the organisation, to look at what needed to be done to support local communities.

What was the impact?

As a result of the summit, the South London COVID-19 Preventing Mental-ill Health Taskforce has been established and is dedicated to the creation of a shared action plan for prevention due to psychological fallout from COVID-19. Through the taskforce, which has representation from statutory, community and experts by experience, SLaM is working together to identify need and address mental health vulnerabilities within their communities.

Applying technology in this way has since been widely adopted across SLaM. Following the summit, a public weekly live broadcast series was launched which explores ways in which practitioners work with local community groups or individuals at risk, to harness strengths and co-produce solutions to some of the emotional and practical challenges of COVID-19. The trust now runs virtual sessions on psychological resilience that reach around 150 people each week, including members of the public, clinicians and people across the health and social care system. These sessions cover a variety of important topics such as psychological resilience and homelessness, and early interventions to prevent psychosis.

What is planned next?

Plans for a second virtual summit are underway working across South London and in partnership with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust, local authorities, the integrated care system, community organisations and Experts by Experience. The partnership team will reconvene key stakeholders including community groups, to share collaborative thinking and establish innovation and ideas for the co-production of the taskforce's action plan which will be published in early 2021. The taskforce is identifying ambition statements and objectives to deliver over a two year period across the following themes:

1. social isolation, loneliness and community involvement
2. helping people who are at risk of losing their jobs cope
3. housing insecurity and environment
4. supporting disadvantaged communities and groups
5. supporting families, children and young people
6. developing a long term, joined up approach to prevention