IMPACT Latest news

Posted on 10 Oct 2024

The overarching vision for our Women’s Secure Services is that every East Midlands woman who is at risk of requiring secure care will be supported to:

• Firstly ensure that their admission to secure care only occurs, when necessary,
• Their human rights, autonomy, dignity, social connections and personal resources are preserved, supported or developed throughout their time in our services,
• They are provided with excellent care and treatment and
• They are able to make a timely smooth transition back to their communities.

We have developed a plan in line with national expectations for systemic transformation and change over the next 2-3 years to improve service access, experience and outcomes for women.

Our women’s services will function as an integrated whole. This requires pathways to be linked with the five East Midlands counties ICBs, social care, the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector (VCFSE), the criminal justice system and NHSE retained specialist services such as national deaf services and high secure care at Rampton.

Only women who require secure hospital care will be admitted, and our services will be inclusive of additional diagnoses and needs. The service offer will be enhanced to ensure that women receive the right evidence-based care and treatment for them, in environments that are appropriate to their needs. It is essential that no women become institutionalised, that they maintain hope for the future and make timely progress toward community discharge.

Our programme of work includes the following main transformation programmes (not an exhaustive list):

• Completion of extensive coproduction activities with all women currently in services via online meetings and a face to face roadshow at each of our units being conducted through to end of October 2024.
• Sharing of implementation journeys between our four providers of women’s services and finding areas for mutual sharing of resources and collaboration.
• Exploring commissioning arrangements to create an integrated female LD low and medium secure co-located model with St Andrew’s Healthcare, Northampton.
• Reviewing the outcomes and future direction (including clinical model and commissioning arrangements) of the women’s blended wards at St Andrew’s, Northampton.
• Working with all partners to embed work best practice we have created for Trauma Informed Care for women in secure care settings.
• Completion of equality impact assessments and health inequalities reviews of all women’s services including all specialist provision and adherence to Equality Act legislation. This will include screening, diagnosis, reasonable adjustments, adaptations to clinical environments, treatment interventions and care pathways.
• Further enhancing our connections with ICB and LA commissioners for areas such as alternatives to admission, review of needs analysis trends, proactive discharge planning and a wider understanding of commissioning opportunities within the Women’s Strategy.
• Working with our partners to understand wider pathway connections e.g. MH Inpatient and Rehabilitation Strategies, wider Women’s Health Strategies, Health Inequalities work and pathways with the Criminal Justice System.
• Completion of the decommissioning of the Women’s Enhanced Medium Secure Services (WEMSS) by April 2025 and the recommissioning secure care provision at Arnold Lodge, Leicester (Notts Healthcare).

Further detail can be found within our Commissioning Strategy.