Oldham psychological medicine service
We are a specialist mental health team dedicated to supporting people with a wide range of complex physical health problems.
If you have complex health needs or persistent physical symptoms including chronic pain, fatigue, or conditions such as diabetes or heart disease, this may affect your mental health and lead to difficulties in leading a fulfilling life. This can be especially difficult when there is no clear medical cause for your symptoms.
You may feel unable due to your poor physical health to manage your emotions, have difficulties in your relationships, be depressed, scared about your future, or may feel unable to cope with your day-to-day life. Any of these symptoms might be a sign that you need additional support.
Our team is made up of staff from a variety of backgrounds, including liaison practitioners, cognitive behavioural therapists, a physiotherapist, 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
- Support from our physiotherapist
- 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 Pennine Care mental health teams, GPs , primary care networks, liaison psychiatry, home-based treatment and Tameside, Oldham, and Glossop Mind. We do accept referrals from other professionals in Oldham, but you must have the agreement of the person's GP.
A referral to our team should be made with the patient’s consent.
Referrals should be emailed to us at pcn-tr.psychologicalmedicine@nhs.net.
For an initial discussion, please contact the team manager on 0161 716 2070.
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.