A MAJOR change in the way adult mental health care is paid for is hoped to have major benefits for patients and prevent them from being overlooked.

Managers have agreed the first stage of long-running plans to pay for care based on how well patients get instead of number of patients treated.

Budget managers previously moved to ask any type of health provider, including private firms and charities, to compete to run services.

But this led to concerns the £35m-a-year plan would fragment NHS services which lost out and the plans were scrapped earlier this year.

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Now Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG) is to begin contract negotiations with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, the mental health authority.

The OCCG – which makes funding decisions – has agreed to run mental health services under one, five-year contract led by the trust.

This will include others like charity Oxfordshire Mind rather than separate contracts, meaning one care plan instead of several for each patient. An OCCG statement said of the present system: “This does not always deliver joined up care, and it does not necessarily help the patient achieve the outcomes that are important to them.”

It said paying all the organisations based on how well the patient is as a result of care under its “outcomes based commissioning” contract will encourage them to work together.

Outcomes could include physical health, patients’ and carers’ views, if they are in settled accommodation, employment and education.

Services that require an overnight stay as well as community, housing, employment and and recovery services would come under the contract.

Voluntary providers Oxfordshire Mind, Response, Restore, Connection Floating Support and Elmore would be included.

The OCCG said the move will give providers scope to change services as they will not be working to a specific, volume-based contract.

Clinical lead for mental health David Chapman said: “The real winners will be local patients who will receive care which focuses on outcomes which have real meaning to them, enabling them to be active in their lives and better supported around their mental illness.

“This will help improve patient care even further in Oxfordshire.”

Oxfordshire Mind chief executive Patrick Taylor said: “By working together and sharing our resources we are going to be in a much better place to make that happen.”

Oxfordshire County Council and OCCG fund services and a final decision is expected by November.

Dr Ken Williamson, of Oxon Keep Our NHS Public, which opposed the previous plans, welcomed the development as “common sense”.

He said: “I’m sure it will be beneficial to have one care plan.

“It is a good thing to have made the tie between the NHS for mental health care and Oxfordshire County Council on a more solid basis.”

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