South London Mental Health and Community Partnership

The South London Partnership (SLP) is an innovative and long‑standing collaboration between South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust.

Working together across South London, the Partnership brings specialist mental health services together at scale to improve care for people with the most complex needs. By pooling clinical expertise, sharing learning and co‑designing services with people who use them, the SLP helps ensure care is high‑quality, consistent and closer to home.

 

By working at scale across the population of South London, the Partnership brings together an exceptional standard of clinical expertise and a greater understanding of people's experience of care. 

This enables each Trust to improve patient experience and outcomes, reduce variation and make better use of NHS resources for the benefit of our communities. 

The Partnership leads and delivers a range of specialist programmes, including adult eating disorders, CAMHS, perinatal mental health, forensic services, complex care, and acute and urgent care.

1. Adult Eating Disorders – This programme brings together specialist services across the Partnership to provide timely, evidence‑based and compassionate care for adults with eating disorders.   In 2024/25 the programme supported the development of community‑based alternatives to inpatient care, helping more people receive treatment closer to home.

2. Complex Care – This programme supports people with severe and enduring mental health needs who require highly specialist rehabilitation and longer‑term support. In 2024/25 the programme progressed a long-term trend of reduced inpatient admissions supported by clinically driven community-based alternatives.

3. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service CAMHS Tier 4 – this programme works to ensure children and young people can access consistent, high‑quality specialist care wherever they live in South London. In 2024/25 the programme progressed a long-term trend of reduced inpatient admissions supported by clinically driven community-based alternatives.

   Transforming care for children with eating disorders 

   The 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.

4. Perinatal – this programme supports women and families during pregnancy and the first years after birth, recognising the vital importance of early mental health support. In 2024/25, at the Maudsley’s Mother and Baby Unit nearly 80% of patients improved between admission and discharge across symptoms, functioning, quality of life and mother-infant bonding, with reduced need for intervention.

   Improving outcomes for women and babies in perinatal care 

   The Perinatal Provider Collaborative delivers integrated inpatient and community mental health care for women and birthing people during pregnancy and the postnatal period, with a strong focus on continuity, early support and equity.

   At the Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) at South London and Maudsley, length of stay averaged 46 days, beating the London benchmark of 49 days and ranking among the lowest in the capital. Nearly 80% of patients showed improvement in symptoms, functioning, quality of life and mother–infant bonding by discharge.

   In the community, access to perinatal mental health services increased from 8.7% to 9.5% of the birth rate, meaning 295 more women were supported without needing inpatient admission. New tools, including a South London‑wide community dashboard and mapping of local services, are helping to identify unmet need and tackle inequalities.

   This integrated approach has improved outcomes for women and babies while strengthening prevention and care closer to home.

5. Forensics – this programme provides secure and highly specialised care for people with complex mental health, intellectual disability and neuro‑disability needs. In 2024/25 the programme focused on tackling out of area health inequalities - 62% of patients brought back to South London from out of area were of an ethnic minority background; this now represents just 22% of people out of area.

   Reducing restrictive care in forensic services The 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.

   Building on the knowledge and experience that had been developed in Oxleas, new specialist FIND teams were introduced in the other partner Trusts 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, the specialist inpatient unit at South West London and St George’s.

   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 

6. Acute and Urgent Care – this programme improvements in crisis, acute and urgent mental health care, helping people get the right support at the right time. In 2024/25 NHS 111 for Mental Health - a phone service providing support to people in crisis - is taking 2,500 calls per month with around half of callers not know to services, showing the positive reach of the services and uptake of support available across our communities.

Read the 2024/25 SLP Annual Review to find out more about activities across each programme.

Building on a year of strong progress, the SLP is now focused on strengthening the partnership’s role as a driver of innovation, collaboration and high‑quality specialist mental healthcare across South London. Alongside continuing to deliver core programmes and commitments, we have reviewed the NHS 10 Year Health Plan and aligned priorities with its three system‑wide shifts: from sickness to prevention, from hospital to community, and from analogue to digital.

From this work, three clear priorities have been agreed for the next phase. We will continue to develop integrated neighbourhood approaches, defining the mental health elements of neighbourhood working to better support people with serious mental illness. There will be a continued focus on productivity, sharing improvements in quality, outcomes and efficiency to build on achievement to date. We will also expand and embed best practice, creating more opportunities for joint working, shared learning and consistent approaches across specialist mental health services.

Work is now underway to define next steps, milestones and priorities, ensuring the partnership continues to deliver meaningful improvements for patients, communities and the wider NHS in South London.

Read the latest Annual Review to find out more about the South London Partnership