Penrose House

The service aims to provide three core functions of support:

• Holistic assessment of and treatment for mental illness or disorder in an individual who has a learning disability with associated emotional and behavioural distress, where it cannot be safely / appropriately managed in the community.
• Creation of a safe place where people feel they are able to take steps towards their recovery.
• Reintegration of the individual back into the community after hospital treatment, including provision of support/guidance to families and support providers in conjunction with Community Learning Disability and Intensive Support Teams.

Our multi-disciplinary team include specialist psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language therapists.The team work with individuals to identify and meet their treatment needs, aiming to.move them back into the community as soon as possible. We work alongside the local authority in helping people return to their homes or find alternative accommodation with the correct level of support. We ensure that every service user has an allocated care co-ordinator to support them when they return to the community.

What about carers and families?

We invite families and carers to be involved throughout an individuals stay at Penrose House . Ways in which they can help include:

• providing our staff with information about a person during their admission
• maintaining contact with the person
• being involved in decisions about the person’s care, treatment, and future discharge

The service provides:

• Detailed assessments of bio-psychosocial needs and behaviour. People who use services and their families are expert partners within the assessment process and assessments take full account of a person’s mental/physical health needs as well as cognitive and communication needs.
• Behaviour support plans and support to implement them. Recommendations could include, for example, environmental modifications, carer advice regarding safe and constructive response to occurrences of behaviours. The plans will take account of the person’s hopes and aspirations.
• Support in the development of person centred plans if the person doesn’t have one, including communication and/or hospital passports or Health Action Plans.
• Positive behaviour support (PBS) plans for all appropriate patients.
• Bespoke, person-focused training to ensure that person centred plans (PBS plan, sensory plan, Hospital Passports) are understood, implemented correctly and monitored for effectiveness.
• Enablement for people to access physical healthcare services as needed. Staff are trained to recognise physical health care needs and proactively manage them with a minimum standard for physical health checks whilst the patient is on the ward.
• Effective, evidence based, solution focused interventions aimed at moving from inpatient into community settings in liaison with the Intensive Support Team and Community Learning Disability Teams. People develop new strategies by which to better meet their own needs. Families and other sources of support have increased confidence and skills in supporting the individual and remain fully involved.
• Risk assessments and management strategies that ensure the wellbeing and safety of all.
• Recovery and discharge plans which are discussed at each care review.
• Application of the Mental Capacity Act including Best Interests and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) for people who lack capacity.
• Mental Health Act (MHA) administration with enablement of people detained under MHA to have appropriate access and support from an advocate.

Referrers, which may include:

• Carers
• Local Authorities
• Care Commissioning Groups (CCG’s)
• Community Learning Disabilities Teams (CLDT)
• Intensive Support Team (IST)
• Behaviour Support Team (BST)
• GP’S

can refer into the service via the Learning Disability Community Pathway.

Hospital admission process
Hospital admission will be determined collaboratively in a Whole Pathway meeting by the Community Intensive Support Team, the Consultant Psychiatrist or their deputy and the Penrose MDT in consultation with the Clinical Commissioning Group. Admission will be on the basis that all clinical intervention/support provided by the Community Intensive Support Team is no longer appropriate, safe or effective.

At the point of referral and if admission is identified, the on call manager will notify the Director on call who will escalate to a designated CCG Director in order to seek commissioners authorisation for the admission and/or next step.

You can contact Penrose House at any time. Ask for the nurse in charge when you call.

Address:
Penrose House
Heath Lane Hospital
Heath Lane
West Bromwich
B71 2BG

Tel: 0121 612 8400