Psychological services

Who we are

Psychological services is one of six care units at Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. Investment in Psychological intervention has helped us grow our psychological services staff who offer a wide range of services to adults, young people, children and people with learning difficulties.

At EPUT, psychological services have evolved into the Psychological Services Clinical Care Unit (CCU), offering specialised services in mental health, physical healthcare, and talking therapies across Essex. They work closely with multi-disciplinary teams to provide integrated care in community, inpatient, primary care, and specialist services.

We are committed to supporting teaching, staff development, research, digital innovations, service design, clinical governance, safeguarding, and service user engagement. We are helping the Trust implement trauma-informed care and enhance service provision. We actively promote service user networks and other forms of user participation, collaborating with EPUT’s Patient Experience Team.

We believe in supporting diversity and inclusion, and initiating projects to encourage access to psychology provision. Whether it is through developing leaders, providing further clinical skills training, flexible working or remote working, we focus on the wellbeing and career development of all our Psychological Services staff.

In dementia and older people’s services, the CCU has formed integrated alliances with primary care and local authority colleagues to develop a system-wide approach. There are a number of pilot schemes delivering comprehensive dementia services across care closer to your locality, specialised care for complex needs and community services. These are providing enhanced diagnostics, intensive support seven days per week and improved communication with the acute sector.

The acute and crisis pathway is undergoing significant redesign with a focus on the avoidance of unnecessary admission to inpatient care and the introduction of home first (care at home) approaches.

The Psychological Services CCU is also leading on a Trust-wide trauma-informed “personality disorder” and complex needs strategy to integrate interventions for people presenting with complex needs throughout the services we provide. We have an Essex-wide specialist multidisciplinary team providing interventions for people with the most complex needs. The team also facilitates the complex needs knowledge and skills training programme, and provides care coordination, consultation and supervision.

Within this integrated model, interventions are provided throughout and across services, rather than through a specialist referral pathway. This is supported by the development of complex needs leads throughout all our services. These colleagues are working with partners to develop a multiagency approach to the management of frequent users of services.

Find more information about the different services we provide on out Psychological Services Information page.