GETTING TO KNOW..... MATTHEW HALL

IN THE LATEST GETTING TO KNOW INTERVIEW,
LEE STEVENS TALKS TO THE NEWLY APPOINTED ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
FOR MENTAL HEALTH IN PORTSMOUTH ABOUT HIS
ROLE AND THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

MH: In my role I'm responsible for the overall delivery of services for adults with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities and substance misuse issues. Mainly across Portsmouth, although the substance misuse service is across South East Hampshire as well.

MH: I guess at the top of my agenda it's about improving some of the service models, it's about ensuring that each of the teams is doing what that specific team ought to be doing. Also that the teams deliver their services to the right groups of service users and in the right way. I think that's a challenge common to all services, and for me it's about bringing that quality up a notch.

MH: At the moment I've only been in post for three and a half weeks so a lot of my days have been spent going out and meeting key people. I've met with people in our organisation, in Portsmouth City Council and with other partner agencies we work with. I'm starting to attend some of the key strategic planning and reporting type of meetings and I've had very little time so far to sit back, at the moment I'm in the process of collecting lots and lots of information from different people and seeing how it all fits together.

MH: I started work in Herrison hospital in Dorset when I was 18. I then did my mental health nurse training. Then I worked as a ward staff nurse. Also as a CPN, I've been a community mental health team manager, I've been a service manager and now I'm here doing this.

MH: what attracted me to Portsmouth was the fact that as a provider of services it is a relatively small organisation. It gives you the opportunity to work very closely with a smaller group of people. I think when you are developing services that can make it a little bit easier. You don't have the weight of bureaucracy all the time. I enjoy working with people and the relationships that develop. You get a lot more of that in a smaller organisation. So it was the size and discreet nature of the service that attracted me.

MH: I think that the report was a useful thing because nobody can deny improvements need to be made. The areas I'll be wanting to improve are around care co-ordination and the CPA process. What we are looking to do is ensure specialist services are seeing the right people. I think in the past Portsmouth mental health services have tried to do too much for too many people; consequently people with more complicated needs haven't had the care that they need. It's about making sure the right people get the right services and continuity of care, so that service users don't notice the "joins" between different parts of the service.

MH: At the moment I haven't made a full assessment of how good it is. What I'd like is to see service user representation to be developed from a service user perspective. It's one thing asking service users to come to your meetings but sometimes things are problematic for the service users if they are not prepared in the right way. It may be we need to think about more sophisticated ways of involving service users. We need to find out how they would like to be involved, maybe appointing people within our organisation who can act as a bridge. Somebody to bring service user issues into meetings so that their voice is adequately represented. Its about making the experience positive for service users.

MH: I think the PORT team who work with people who are disengaged with services are really making a difference. I think is fair to say there is a lot of progress and a lot of developments in many areas. I think across the board all services are performing better than they did at the time of the healthcare commission report.

MH: Fortunately, within the PCT we are not under the constraints some organisations are. Having said that it's part of my responsibility to make sure we get value for money. It's up to me to make sure that this public money we are getting we get usefulness from. So although we are not restrained, we'll make sure the money is spent properly.

MH: : I quite like it. It's got good interactivity. What could be improved is service information, however.

MH: Lots of things! I'm a Christian so I enjoy church related activities. I enjoy walking, the countryside, swimming, spending time with friends, going to the pub and eating out.