Oldham psychological medicine service

Our team is made up of staff from a variety of backgrounds, including liaison practitioners, cognitive behavioural therapists, psychologists, liaison psychiatrists and administrators. As a team and with your consent, we work closely with your other health care professionals so we can support you in a well coordinated plan with the aim of improving your wellbeing.

The Oldham Psychological Service is based at Forest House, Royal Oldham Hospital, but additionally works in local GP surgeries, the Link Centre in Oldham and can arrange home visits when needed.

You would usually be referred to us if you are accessing healthcare regularly due to on-going distressing physical experiences. We would meet with you to discuss your main problems and identify areas where you need support. This support may be provided through a range of psychological interventions, case management and reviews with the psychiatrists.

We focus on a whole person approach and our wellbeing plans are tailored to your situation. These can include regular appointments with liaison practitioners, medication reviews and psychological therapy.

Initially, you will have an assessment to discuss your wellbeing needs and goals. From the assessment, we will assess if you need:

• Therapy with a psychologist or cognitive behavioural therapist, or
• Case management with a practitioner for up to 18 months, or
• An appointment with a psychiatrist, especially if you require a medication review or
• A referral to a more appropriate mental health service

We can support you if:

• You are over the age of 16
• You have declined or not benefited from other services
• You are not involved with another statutory mental health service
• You do not have an active psychosis
• You have high utilisation of healthcare such as your GP or Accident and Emergency
• You do not have to have a diagnosed mental health condition, as we recognise that people with complex physical health problems will often be experiencing poor mental health
• You are registered with an Oldham GP

Training of primary care staff, mental health staff, clinical and non-clinical is also a vital part of our service, and we aim to be part of the wider educational offer co-ordinated at a borough level. This can be formal or informal, and we recognise supervision and signposting as educational opportunities. We will seek to provide tailored training to enable colleagues to better manage patients with complex physical and mental health needs.

We are happy to provide professionals across the primary care network specialist consultations about specific patients providing comprehensive guidance and advice about how best to support that person with their physical and mental health needs.

We take referrals from a wide range of professionals working in mental and physical healthcare in Oldham. This includes GPs, other mental health teams, Greater Manchester liaison psychiatry, home-based treatment and Tameside, Oldham, and Glossop Mind. A referral to our team should be made with the patient’s consent.

Referrals should be emailed to us on pcn-tr.psychologicalmedicine@nhs.net.

For an initial discussion, please contact the team manager on 0161 716 2070.

We do accept referrals from other professionals in Oldham, but you must have the agreement of the person's GP.

We work closely with other professionals to make sure we offer you the best care. To help us to help you, we will ask other agencies involved in your care, such as your GP, to provide us with information about you that is relevant, necessary, and proportionate.

All information sharing is done confidentially, securely, and in accordance with UK data protection legislation requirements.

If you have any concerns about how your information is used or wish to discuss this further, please speak to one of our team or visit our how we use your information page for more details.