As you may be aware, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust have been working in a formal Partnership for the last few years to improve the care we offer you across our five boroughs. 

To give our Partnership a clearer identity, we are now known as the North London Mental Health Partnership (NLMHP) and you will see this on our letters to you and other documents in the future. We have also developed a new NLMHP Strategy, co-produced with service users, carers, partners and staff. It describes how we want to meet the needs of the growing populations we serve, so that everyone receives high-quality services, wherever you live, when you need them.

We believe that coming together as one new organisation is better for our service users, carers, staff and local communities. We can achieve more together than we can continuing to work as two separate Trusts and we are now applying formally to make this change from Autumn 2024. We will keep you updated via our website and will also be letting you know how you can get involved to help shape how our services can be improved as we come together as one new organisation.

Please be assured that this will not change the locations where we provide services or the team that currently supports you, but we believe that coming together as one organisation will help to improve the quality of care you receive.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about any of this, please email NLMPH.nextstepsqueries@nhs.net

The British Medical Association has announced that Consultants and Junior Doctors in England will be going on strike on the following dates:

• Tuesday 19 - Wednesday 20 September: Consultants
• Wednesday 20 – Friday 22 September: Junior Doctors

The safety of our service users is always our top priority and we have plans in place to ensure that this is maintained and services can operate as much as possible. If there are changes to an appointment you have on one of the strike days, we will be in touch with you beforehand to re-schedule. However, if you do not hear from us, please attend your appointment as usual.

If you experience a mental health crisis during this time, please use our Crisis Lines and Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service – these services will be staffed during the industrial action.

If you have any questions about the strikes, how these might affect you and what to do if you experience a mental health crisis, please read our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The Recovery College at St Pancras provides free courses to our communities. They welcome all feedback and are looking to work with the community to refine their courses and ensure that they suit the needs of the people they help. Your ideas are really important and they are keen to hear them. 

On Monday 2 October, they are hosting an afternoon of  co-production conversations to explore what matters most to their students and the community they serve.  You can help to shape the way they work and their wellbeing offer. Lunch will be provided on the day. There are limited places, so please do sign up through this link

To view the poster for the event, please click here.

After graduating from the Royal College of Music in 1980 and building a successful live career in the 1980s and 1990s as a musician, Jon Hall used his passion for music and belief in human potential to re-train as a music therapist.

He set up Apod Music in 2006 with psychologist Jake Farr to bring together Psychology and Music and worked with clients with mental health issues, brain injuries, and learning disabilities, fostering creativity to help people along with their recovery journeys. 

"I work with individuals or small groups of people, of all ages, to help them write, produce and record music as a way of helping them cope with and alleviate psychological, emotional, cognitive, physical, communicative and social challenges. 

"Creative works of music give participants something to be proud of, a tangible achievement, which in turn helps them develop an appreciation of their own abilities, fostering self-belief and presenting a view of how they would be as a ‘well-functioning’ person free of the challenges they face."

Jon has worked with young people at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital to create original songs, poems, and videos that reflect some of the tragedy, fun, chaos, and isolation of day-to-day life. You can view those here, here, and here. 

Jon established Outsider Music as a Community Interest Company in 2019 and received NHS funding for ‘Music and Co-production’ from Barnet, Enfield and Haringey staff and adult patients at St Ann’s Hospital

Find out more about Jon and his work here