Causeway community mental health teams ‘ready for neighbourhood model’
Members of the Causeway Hospital Partnership Board have heard how the area’s community mental health service is “ideally positioned” to align with the Department of Health’s Neighbourhood Model of Health and Wellbeing.
Launched by the Health Minister in March, as part of the Health and Social Care Reset Plan, the model is aimed at bringing care ‘closer to home’ for people living in the community.
Attending the latest meeting of the Board this week, Dr Petra Corr, Director of Mental Health, Learning Disability and Psychological Services with the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, said community mental health teams working across the Causeway Coast and Glens area have already established strong links with community partners including GPs and the community and voluntary sector.
“Our community mental health teams are the backbone of our service,” said Dr Corr.
“We know that the more we can do in the early stages to wrap around a person and provide them with the right support, in the community and in their own home, the less likely they are to need more escalated interventions further down the line.
“We are focussed on supporting people to stay well in the community which very much aligns with the Neighbourhood Model, so our teams are ideally positioned to build on those strong community links and strengthen our partnerships to ensure that we are pooling our resources to deliver integrated care for our local population.”
The Partnership also heard how the Trust was looking at the support it provides for carers to ensure that people who are caring for a loved one with mental health issues, including dementia, do not feel isolated or become unwell themselves.
The Causeway Hospital Partnership Board was established in September 2024 with the aim of driving forward the Trust’s Vision for Causeway.
The Board brings together Trust staff and representatives from a number of partner and community organisations including charity and voluntary sector, community transport, service users and local council.
Dr Corr added: “Given the very difficult financial constraints we are working in across Health and Social Care, it is more important than ever for us to think about how we can do things differently, with the resources we have. That means looking to our community and voluntary partners to ensure that we are not duplicating efforts, but rather we look at it like a patchwork quilt and identify where the gaps are and how best we can, collectively, address some of those gaps.”
It’s been just over two years since the Northern Trust published its Vision for Causeway Hospital.
Kathy Mackenzie, a Non-Executive Director with the Trust, and co-chair of the Causeway Hospital Partnership Board said “significant progress” has been made on realising the ambition contained within the Vision.
Kathy said: “We said from the outset that we did not want this Vision to be something we just talked about and so I am really delighted that two years on, we have made significant progress around many of the ambitions within our strategic vision for the hospital.
“As we look forward to marking the 25th anniversary of Causeway Hospital next month, we will be publishing our updated Vision document, detailing the progress we have made to date and reaffirming our commitment to the hospital’s bright future.”
27th April 2026
