Southern Railway and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust are working together for World Mental Health Day and are planning an exciting new mental health hub pilot which will take place at Brighton and Eastbourne stations.
Earlier in the year, Southern undertook an extensive campaign engaging with NHS Trusts to ensure the rail service met the needs of key workers. During this piece of engagement, concerns were raised about future impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on health and wellbeing, particularly surrounding mental health. With this in mind, Southern and Sussex Partnership NHS Trust have developed a programme throughout October to use the local rail network as a source to provide extra mental health support for our communities and rail passengers during this difficult time.
A key part of the programme is advertising and hosting new ‘pop up’ mental health hubs, and these will be hosted at Brighton and Eastbourne station. The purpose of the hubs is to provide sign posting to available healthcare services and practical advice for managing your own and others mental health. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust will be providing a range of psychologists and therapists to staff the hubs and will be on hand to talk to customers and the public, with Southern ‘wellbeing champions’ joining them to provide more general help, advice and support. This pilot marks the first partnership between Southern and an NHS trust to deliver localised mental health support collaboratively.
The scheme will run from 3pm until 6pm between Monday 12th October and Wednesday 14th October. During this unprecedented and challenging time for the country, it is all too easy to profess feeling fine even when that might not be the truth. We hope the hubs will encourage our customers and local community to ask themselves if they or people they know really are ‘fine’.
