Lots of partners are involved in transforming community mental health services in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale.

Key partners include our mental health staff, GPs and primary care colleagues, Rochdale and District Mind (opens in new window), Turning Point (opens in new window), people with lived experience, carers, and many others.

Primary care networks are groups of GP practices which are are working with mental and physical health services, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services. There are six primary care networks in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale: 

  • Heywood primary care network: all GP practices in Heywood 
  • Pennines primary care network: all GP practices in Littleborough, Milnrow, Newhey, and Wardle 
  • Canalside primary care network: Castleton Health Centre, Kirkholt Medical Practice, Wellfield Health Centre, Dr Hamid’s Practice, Middleton Health Centre, Kingsway Medical Practice and The Hive Health Centre 
  • The bridge primary care network: Dr Bhima’s Surgery, The Dale Medical Practice, Dr Ghafoor & Abbasi, The Family Practice, Dr IK Babar and The Strand Medical​​​​ 
  • The Rochdale north primary care network: Ashworth Street Surgery, Inspire Medical Centre, Yorkshire Street Surgery, Edenfield Road Surgery, Mark Street Surgery, Healey Surgery, the Dawes Family Practice
  • Middleton primary care network: Alkrington Health Centre, Rochdale Road Medical Centre, Woodside Medical Centre, Durnford Medical Centre, The Junction Surgery, Peterloo Medical Centre, Windermere Surgery

 

All of our GP practices are now supported by dedicated team of mental health professionals. This includes:

  • Senior mental health practitioner
  • Mental health wellbeing practitioner
  • Community navigator
  • Peer support worker 
  • Diverse communities link worker (working across both networks)

They'll work with your GP to provide the right mental health support for your needs. If you need more or different support than they can provide, they'll link with the borough's living well team. You can read more about this here. 

Our living well team

We've been working hard to develop our living well team, which will work with all six primary care networks to make sure people receive the right support for their needs.  

This work has involved developing new roles, recruiting staff and looking at new ways of working together to make sure people can quickly and easily get more or less support, as their needs change. 

This new way of working is being rolled out in a phased approach. Four of our five primary care networks have gone live with this new way of working:

  • Heywood primary care network -  August 2023
  • Pennines primary care network - November 2023
  • Canalside primary care network - May 2024
  • The bridge primary care network - July 2024
  • The Rochdale north primary care network - July 2024

The Middleton primary care network will go live in November 2024.

For more information about the transformation programme, contact Michelle Casey, programme manager, at michellecasey@nhs.net

How to get mental health help

If you have mild to moderate issues such as low mood, anxiety, trouble sleeping, isolation or panic you can can self-refer to NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale talking therapies (opens in new window).

If you need more help please make an appointment with your GP in the first instance. 

If you're experiencing a mental health crisis you can contact our helpline.

If there's an immediate risk of danger to life, you should ring 999.