Publish date: 17 May 2024
This week in Liverpool, CEO Prof Joe Rafferty opened the second HOPE(S) conference. It was attended by an impressive 220 delegates, including people with lived experience, senior NHSE leaders, commissioners, regulators and experts from across the country. Many more partners joined online too.
The HOPE(S) clinical model seeks to reduce long term segregation in secure care. It was created by Mersey Care’s Dr Jennifer Kilcoyne and Danny Angus. At the Hilton Hotel, Prof Rafferty spoke about the harm caused to already traumatised people – and staff – by locking people into segregation. Joe praised the work done to improve awareness, create better practice through HOPE(S) and provide a rigorous academic oversight of it.
Joe told the conference: “I’m so pleased to hear of the progress we’re making. One of the great lessons of HOPE(S) is bringing the complex, diverse system together and it’s an incredible achievement of the team to bring them together.”
Co-Chair of the National Steering Group, Sir Norman Lamb spoke after Joe. Sir Norman, a former health minister, praised Mersey Care’s leadership and urged the programme to continue.
Family members spoke next, with experiences from across the country. They spoke of examples of the negative effects on their loved ones of long-term segregation. The stories they told were powerful, challenging and, the conference agreed, needed to be told. There were also reports of success too. There was praise for those working in Mersey Care’s forensic LD services and news of positive outcomes from former service users in our care.
HOPE(S) has been funded by NHS England to roll out the model across services in England. It is subject to national scrutiny and Mersey Care is working closely with Manchester Metropolitan University to provide the academic oversight and research into the success of the model. Their leads spoke as well on Monday about the effectiveness of the programme.
More than 2400 clinical staff across the NHSE have been trained by Mersey Care in the use of this model. There has been significant learning in how to do this, not just in the NHS, but also for our partners in community services.
To find out more about the model and hear from some of those involved in it, see our website