Partnerships
Supported by annual delivery plan 5: Partnerships
Improving mental health outcomes requires strong partnerships across health, care and the community. In 2025-2026, we continued to work closely with partners across South West London and beyond to deliver more joined-up, preventative and community-based support.
Our focus has been on strengthening collaboration, improving access to care and addressing the wider factors that affect mental health, including housing, social connection and inequality.
Working at scale across South London
We are part of the South London Mental Health and Community Partnership (SLP), working alongside South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust to deliver specialist services across a larger population. This partnership allows us to share expertise and best practice, reduce variation in care, improve access to specialist services and support more people to receive care closer to home.
For example, partnership working has helped:
- reduce inpatient stays for people with complex needs
- improve access to specialist services for children and young people
- reduce the number of people receiving care far from home, particularly for those from ethnic minority backgrounds
Forensic Intellectual and Neuro‑disability (FIND) Service: The SLP’s Forensic Intellectual and Neuro‑disability (FIND) Service was expanded to address long‑standing inequalities for forensic patients with learning disabilities and autistic people, who are disproportionately placed far from home and remain in restrictive settings for longer.
New specialist FIND teams were introduced to provide proactive care coordination, support Responsible Clinicians, manage risk and accelerate safe step‑down from secure hospital settings. This included tailored pathways for patients detained under the Mental Health Act and closer integration with Oak Ward, in Shaftesbury Building. As a result, the number of forensic patients cared for out of area has reduced significantly, with particular impact for ethnic minority patients. While 62% of those repatriated back to South London were from ethnic minority backgrounds, only 22% of patients remaining out of area now come from these groups. This has improved equity of access, strengthened recovery close to family and support networks, and reduced the risk of readmission and contact with the criminal justice system.
Transforming care for children with eating disorders: The SLP’s CAMHS Eating Disorders Integrated Outreach Team was launched to improve care for some of the most unwell children and young people across South London, providing intensive support as an alternative to hospital admission wherever possible. Working across Trust boundaries, the team supports young people to remain safely at home or return home sooner from hospital, while delivering improved clinical outcomes. Just one year after launch, the team is well established and already making a significant difference. Interventions have almost halved the length of time children and young people need to spend as inpatients in acute hospitals due to eating disorders. On Wisteria Ward at South West London and St George’s, inpatient bed days for eating disorders have reduced by more than 50%. These gains have been achieved alongside improved clinical outcomes, including increased weight gain and reduced weight loss among young people supported by the service. This approach supports recovery closer to home, improves experience for families, and reduces the need for restrictive inpatient care.
Strengthening system working across South West London
There have been significant changes for our local Integrated Care System and Provider Collaboratives across South West and South East London. We continued to work closely with our Integrated Care System and local partners across our five boroughs. This includes working with local authorities, primary care and voluntary sector partners, supporting more joined-up, neighbourhood-based care and improving coordination between services.
Through this work, we are helping to:
- improve patient experience
- reduce duplication
- deliver more efficient and effective services
Mental Health and neighbourhood working
We participated in work at London, South London and local level to consider how to shape and contribute to the emerging neighbourhood health agenda. At London level, a set of guiding principles and outcomes have been developed alongside a series of recommendations aligned to the national Neighbourhood Health Framework (published in March 2026). At a South London level, we have collaborated with SLaM and Oxleas colleagues to form a set of macro-level principles alongside a framework for testing models locally. At a very localised level we are collaborating with partners at place to design pilot neighbourhood-working approaches around specific cohorts of patients.
South West London Mental Health Strategy and the Clinically Led Strategic Plan: We are working with the South West London Integrated Care Board and partners to define interventions to support delivery of the Clinically Led Strategic Plan. This work focuses on reducing unwarranted variation across the six South West London places, improving outcomes for people with severe mental illness and reducing the future burden of mental ill health, particularly depression. Cases for change will be developed to support this work.
South West London Mental Health Strategy: The 2025 — 2026 delivery plan concentrated on support for Children and Young People and enabling infrastructure for overall delivery. Across South West London, we have worked to:
• Develop a ‘core offer’ for children and young people so that we have clarity on what can be expected regardless of where you live across the six SWL boroughs
• Improve the pathway from those transitioning from young people to adults
• Lay the foundation for future ‘core offer’ for adult community services
• Progress the South London Listens work: supporting prevention, early access and reducing inequalities
The 2025/26 delivery plan for the Strategy has been agreed with additional support and capacity across partners. The year four plan is currently being developed and will be agreed through the Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group.
Mental Health Conference : In May we held our second South West London Mental Health conference. Over 120 patients, carers, members of the community, partners and staff attended the conference which was focused on the key themes of the Mental Health Strategy: partnership working across prevention, health inequalities and children and young people. Each of the main and breakout sessions had the voices of people with lived experience at their centre, with people sharing stories and experiences throughout the day. The diversity of our communities was reflected in the event’s speakers, session leaders and attendees. We shared the outputs to support the next steps for our Mental Health Strategy.
Working with local voluntary, community, charity and faith organisations: Our relationships with community, voluntary, charity and faith organisations are critical to delivering our refreshed strategy and improving mental health outcomes across South West London. These partnerships help us reach communities who may not traditionally access mental health services, reduce stigma and build trust. During the year, we worked closely with faith communities to improve understanding of mental health, support Mental Health First Aid training and develop South London Listens Be Well hubs, which provide community-based support closer to home. Community and voluntary sector partners have also played an important role in our Health Inequalities Advisory Panel, helping shape our approach to reducing inequalities. In addition, charities and third sector organisations continue to be key partners in delivering peer support within our Integrated Recovery Hubs, ensuring people can access support from those with lived experience as part of their recovery journey.
Strengthening partnership working in Merton
As part of the NHS South West London Integrated Care Board restructure, a new Place Chief Officer role was created for each borough to support the development of integrated neighbourhood health and care services. Our Chief Executive was appointed as the Place Chief Officer for Merton.
The role works on behalf of NHS South West London to support the development and delivery of neighbourhood health and care through implementation of the London Target Operating Model. It brings together NHS organisations across Merton, including acute, community and mental health providers, alongside primary care, adult and children’s social care, voluntary sector organisations, pharmacy, hospices and wider partners.
A key focus of the role is strengthening integrated working across organisational boundaries, from senior leadership through to neighbourhood and frontline teams. This includes supporting the development of shared governance arrangements through the Merton Place Provider Alliance, helping partners work more effectively together around the needs of local people and communities.
Work during the year focused on building relationships across partners, reviewing existing governance arrangements and developing a roadmap for a more integrated alliance model. This included supporting work on neighbourhood transition targets, improving interfaces between services and identifying the infrastructure and leadership needed to support more joined-up care.
Children and young people remain a key priority within this work. Partners across Merton continue to strengthen prevention, early intervention and community-based support, recognising the importance of improving emotional wellbeing, reducing inequalities and supporting children and families earlier.
This work aligns closely with South West London’s Mental Health Strategy and the wider NHS shift towards more integrated neighbourhood working, with a stronger focus on prevention, partnership and care closer to home.
Looking ahead
Partnership working will become an even stronger focus within our refreshed Trust strategy, which will launch in 2026/27. As mental health services continue to face growing demand and increasing complexity, delivering better outcomes will depend on working more closely across health, care, local government, voluntary and community sector organisations and local communities. We will continue strengthening integrated neighbourhood working across South West London, improving coordination between services and supporting more preventative, community-based care. Through our partnerships, we will focus on reducing inequalities, improving access and experience, and helping more people receive care closer to home and in the least restrictive setting possible.