Our work

We currently run a wide range of work programmes across Greater Manchester, some of which are detailed below.

Adult Community

Greater Manchester Community Mental Health Transformation Programme: Greater Manchester are continuing to improve community mental health services to meet the needs of our service users and their carers/family through place-based neighbourhood teams and integrated community pathways core services. We will help people in Greater Manchester wherever they live, and whatever their background to stay well, play an active part in their communities, and have greater choice and control of their care. Read more

Complex Care and Mental Health Rehabilitation: Enabling people with mental health-related complex needs to live successfully in the community requires a whole system approach to recovery. Community rehabilitation is a dedicated focus area of Community Mental Health Transformation being implemented by Greater Manchester in 22/23 and 23/24.Read more

Complex Emotional and Relational Needs: Evidence supports community-based trauma informed psychological interventions with the aspiration in Greater Manchester is to deliver “A clinical model that improves access to evidence based psychological treatment with the clinical aspiration being to be able to offer psychological informed NICE adherent therapy and care for a great number of people with Complex Emotional Needs in Greater Manchester”. Read more

Eating disorders: Our adult eating disorder services aim to provide a responsive, effective and safe service to adults with eating disorders in Greater Manchester and improve and standardise the service offered across the ten localities of Greater Manchester. Read more

Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services can improve clinical outcomes, such as admission rates, symptoms and relapse, for people with a first episode of psychosis. They do this by providing a full range of evidence‑based treatment including pharmacological, psychological, social, occupation and educational interventions. The national standard is 60% of people experiencing first episode psychosis will be treated with a NICE-approved care package a within two weeks of referral. Read more

NHS Talking Therapies (for anxiety and depression). This is a national NHS programme across England, offering National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved interventions to treat people with common mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety disorders. We’re working towards improving access rates by investing more in services but also by looking at the way we are delivering services. We’re also working towards supporting more people with long term physical health conditions and co-morbid anxiety disorders and depression. Read more

Individual Placement Support. By 2023/24, NHS England and NHS Improvement aims to help tens of thousands of people with severe mental illness (SMI) find and keep their employment through the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) scheme. Read more

Physical health and severe mental illness. People with severe mental illness (SMI) face health inequalities and live on average 15 to 20 years less than the general population. They are less likely to have their physical health needs met, including identification of health concerns and appropriate, timely screening and treatment. Read more

Adult Crisis

Crisis Care and Liaison Mental Health: Liaison mental health services, based in acute hospitals, provide assessment and care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to patients with a mental health need, in either the A&E department or an in-patient ward. Liaison mental health care is available to people with urgent needs arriving in A&E, and to those who need mental health treatment alongside their physical treatment in hospitals. We’re working together across Greater Manchester to make sure that people presenting with a mental health need in A&E departments and on physical health wards will have access to a swift and compassionate assessment of their mental health needs and high-quality National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended care, any time of the day or night, every day of the week, in whichever general hospital they attend in Greater Manchester. People will have their mental health needs identified and treated during the hospital admission or during follow-up in community mental health services. Read more

Out of area placements: There’s a national ambition to eliminate all inappropriate adult acute out of area placements by 2021. Inappropriate out of area placements are where patients are sent out of an area because no bed is available for them locally. This can delay their recovery. We want people in Greater Manchester to be treated in a location which helps them to maintain contact with their family, carers and friends, and to feel as familiar as possible with their local surroundings.Read more

Mental Health Tactical Advice Service. The Mental Health Tactical Advice Service is delivered in partnership between Greater Manchester Police and both Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trusts, and operates to support police officers and call handlers to deal with mental health issues more effectively. The service provides direct access for police officers to a dedicated mental health professional, providing real-time clinical advice, support with decision-making, and onward referral to the relevant mental health team where appropriate. More information can be found on the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust website

Children and Young People Crisis Care

Children and young people crisis care. A new crisis care pathway has been developed for children and young people across Greater Manchester. With some elements now live and with further development in progress, the crisis care pathway is making a real difference to children and young people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. Our aim is to offer young people the right help, at the right time, by the right person, in the right place, 100 per cent of the time. This will dramatically improve their overall experience, along with those who care for them and help to keep them out of hospital. Read more This link will take you to the Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust website

Children and Young People Community

Children and Young People Learning Disabilities and Autism. Based on national models and research, it has been estimated that there are between 1200-1800 people of all ages with learning disabilities and autism, or both (including co-existing mental health problems and behaviour that challenges) with highly complex needs in Greater Manchester. Within this all-age population, we estimate that there are approximately 400 children and young people and their families who need targeted help to coordinate care, support and treatment. Read more

Eating disorders. Eating disorders (Anorexia nervosa, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders) are very complex psychiatric disorders. There’s significant evidence to suggest that early access to comprehensive treatment improves the prognosis of these young people, reduces need for inpatient treatment and decreases long term morbidity and mortality. Our aim is to improve access and waiting times for children and young people with an eating disorder. Read more

i-THRIVE Children and Young People. Greater Manchester i-THRIVE is a programme working to implement the THRIVE framework for system change and it’s principles across all 10 Greater Manchester localities. Working with the Greater Manchester workforce, children, young people, families and many other stakeholders, we’re aiming to improve mental health support and provision across Greater Manchester, and have the whole system working in a THRIVE-like way. Read more

Greater Manchester Mental Health in Education: The Greater Manchester mental health in education programme includes three projects linked to the government’s Green Paper Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision. A green paper is a document where the government states what it wants to do, so that people can tell the government what they think.

Mental health support teams. These are trained staff linked to groups of schools and colleges. They will offer individual and group help to young people with mild to moderate mental health issues, including anxiety, low mood and behavioural difficulties. Read more
Designated senior lead training. The national aim is for every school and college to have a designated mental health lead by 2025. The designated lead will be a trained member of staff who’s responsible for the school’s approach to mental health. Read more

The programme also includes:

Greater Manchester mentally healthy schools and colleges rapid pilot. This pilot was a collaboration between local and national voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. Read more
Greater Manchester mental health in further education colleges. Developing the capacity of further education and sixth form colleges in Greater Manchester to collaborate to support the mental health and wellbeing of their staff and students and identifying good practice that can be shared across the system. Read more
Greater Manchester mental health universal resources. Defining a consistent standard for the provision of mental health support in schools and colleges that the designated senior mental health leads could be supported to work towards. These are currently in the early stages of development. Read more

Greater Manchester universities mental health service. The transition to university can be a tough time, with many young people living away from home, family and friends for the first time. This can be made even more challenging when a student is dealing with significant mental health difficulties alongside all the challenges of being a student. This service enables university students to access mental health services quickly and easily. In the longer term it will help to inform and develop best practices, with the aspiration to lead the way in mental health provision both nationally and globally. Read more

Perinatal and parent infant mental health. Greater Manchester aims to give all families the best possible start, by focusing on supporting families in the perinatal period up until their child’s 2^nd birthday. We will support the emotional and mental well-being of all parents, the infant, their relationship, and the family. Scientific studies show the significance of the earliest period of an infant’s life, the first 1001 critical days. We used to think babies’ brains grew and developed because of physical maturation and genetic inheritance; we now know that brain development depends principally on healthy interactions between a baby and his/her parents. We also know that about 20% of women experience mental health problems during this time, making this a relatively common experience. A wide range of mental health conditions can occur, most commonly depression and anxiety. A significant percentage of partners can also experience mental health. We’re developing a pioneering perinatal and parent-infant mental health whole system approach. Services include: Specialist Perinatal Community Mental Health; Parent-Infant Mental Health; Adult IAPT (Improving access to psychological therapies) PIMH; Volunteer peer support. Read more

All age programmes

Mental Wellbeing: In Greater Manchester we are working to improve our residents’ mental wellbeing. We have a number of training packages, resources and services to help our residents, professionals and workplaces. This includes Connect 5, a mental health promotion training programme, and Living Life To The Full, courses and resources residents can access to support their own wellbeing. Workplaces are encouraged to sign up to the Good Employment Charter and use the Greater Manchester Mental Health Toolkit for Employers to improve wellbeing in the workplace.

Suicide Prevention. In addition to the Greater Manchester Suicide Prevention Programme Board, each of the ten Greater Manchester localities has a suicide prevention group with its own local action plan. The Greater Manchester Suicide Prevention Strategy was refreshed in 2019 and an annual action plan was developed. Since launching in May 2019, the Shining a Light on Suicide campaign continues to raise awareness of suicide with the aim of reducing suicide across the city region. In April 2019, The Greater Manchester Suicide Bereavement Information Service was created for people seeking guidance on practical and emotional support following a bereavement by suicide. Read more