Managing Partner for the Individual Patient Placement Directorate at Devon Partnership NHS Trust, Shawn Tait, said:
“Our mission is to become a centre of excellence and expertise in the field of mental health and learning disability over the next five years. We want to ensure that everyone we support – including those people who require care in a PICU – consistently have a safe, high quality experience.
We are confident that the contract we have signed with Cygnet will help us to achieve this goal. We expect this block book arrangement will be a positive experience for people using services, their families and carers, improving clinical outcomes and reducing length of stays”.
Commercial Director of Cygnet, Lee Hammon, said:
“We have enjoyed a long-standing and successful commissioner-provider relationship with Devon Partnership NHS Trust, which has undoubtedly resulted in benefits for the service users requiring inpatient care from within the Devon borders. We have been operating PICU services for 19 years, including to Devon, and are delighted to be able to transfer this working to a more formalised contracted arrangement.
We expect that following the recent report from Lord Crisp on the challenges we face within the national acute inpatient mental health system, that we will see more of such contracts in order to secure capacity as close to home as possible.”