The Kent, Sussex and Surrey Adult Secure Services Provider Collaborative and partner providers have been working together for the past two years on a programme to transform secure services for women across the footprint.
This builds on learning from nationally co-produced programmes, including the national pilot for Women's Secure Blended Services.
In January 2024, NHS England started to implement a nationwide Women's Secure Pathway Transformation (WSPT) programme with the following principles:
- The WSPT Programme is about the whole women's secure pathway and interface with relevant services
- The focus is on aligning and localising the pathway for all women with initial focus on changes to the commissioning of Women's Enhanced Medium Secure Services (WEMSS).
- This transformation must be coproduced with people with lived and living experience, staff in secure services and interfacing services.
- The programme is led locally / regionally, with national coordination and support.
What is changing?
Over the next year, we will be implementing a number of changes to secure services for women in Kent, Sussex and Surrey.
1. Establishing new women's secure outreach service
This small, specialist team, comprising of an expert clinical psychologist and a nurse consultant, will work with services who refer women for admission into secure services. Their role will be to undertake detailed assessments and support teams to deliver effective interventions where admission to secure services is not considered to be the best option.
2. Creating a virtual women's secure blended service for Kent and Sussex
Building on the learning from the national pilot project, led by NHS England, which brought together low and medium secure services for women into a single secure 'blended' service, we are exploring how to replicate this model across the two medium secure wards for women - the Trevor Gibbens unit in Kent and the Hellingly Centre in Sussex.
Services will continue to be provided across the two sites but will be connected virtually, working to a single operational policy and clinical pathway.
The long-term strategy is to identify how to deliver women's blended secure services in Kent, Surrey and Sussex on a single site.
3. Contracting with community-based women's centres
Following the successful pilot, which concluded earlier this year, we have identified and agreed funding to continue this programme of work with Brighton Women's Centre to support patients in the four secure wards for women across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
4. Recruiting a women's pathway clinical lead
To ensure the clinical pathway for women requiring secure care is led effectively, we have established a new, part-time position as clinical lead. The post holder will play a key role in delivering the new virtual blended women's pathway.
Why is this change necessary?
We want to make sure that we are delivering the most appropriate service for people who need or use specialist secure services and to learn from other areas of the country where changes have been made successfully.
Evidence shows that the experiences of women differ to men who are using secure services, particularly in relation to forensic histories, diagnostic profiles, risk profiles, experience of trauma and length of stay.
Through the changes we are making to the women's pathway, we are aiming to reduce the number of women in secure services who do not benefit from secure care and ensure that people are placed in the least restrictive environment and supported in the community wherever possible as an alternative to inpatient care.
Plans have been developed to establish the delivery of trauma informed care throughout the women's secure pathway services.
How have the changes been developed?
We heard from patients, families and staff about what works well and what could be improved, analysed local data and drew on learnings from national pilot programmes, the pilot with the Brighton Women's Centre and other similar projects.
A steering group - represented by our provider partners, community-based women's centres and an expert by experience - and a clinical reference group were established to oversee the development and delivery of this programme.
Find out more
If you would like to learn more about this programme, please email Flora.