Transfer of physical and mental health services in Blackburn with Darwen and East Lancashire

One of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board’s (ICB) aims is to ensure consistency of services across Lancashire and South Cumbria, and for everyone to experience the same high-quality care, regardless of where they live.
With that in mind, over the past year, the ICB, together with colleagues at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCft) and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) have been looking at how, and by whom, adult community physical health services and children and young people’s mental health services are delivered in Blackburn with Darwen and East Lancashire.
It’s clear from this work that these services are provided by hard-working and experienced colleagues who are committed to delivering excellent care, but that the current model is disjointed and could work better for our patients and their families.
• In Blackburn with Darwen, most of the service provision for adult community physical health services currently sits with LSCft, with other elements provided by ELHT.
• For children and young people’s mental health services (often referred to as CAMHS), some elements are provided by ELHT and others by LSCft, across both Blackburn with Darwen and East Lancashire.
• This leads to differing levels of service provision for our residents, as well as a lack of resilience for the teams delivering those services.
As such, the three organisations proposed the following:
• The transfer of NHS adult community physical health services in Blackburn with Darwen from LSCft to ELHT – including the transfer of existing colleagues.
• The transfer of children and young people’s mental health services in Blackburn with Darwen and East Lancashire, known as ELCAS (East Lancashire Child and Adolescent Services), from ELHT to LSCft – including the transfer of existing colleagues.
A robust due diligence process has been undertaken and a business case developed to support both transfers. Over the past couple of weeks, the business case received formal approval by the Boards of all three organisations.
Formal TUPE and mobilisation plans are now underway, the ambition is for both transfers to take place on 1 July 2024.
Read about the benefits and opportunities of the transfer here