Enter and view at Harbour cafe

We used our powers of Enter and View to visit The Harbour, a mental health crisis café based in University Hospital Lewisham.

The Harbour is run in partnership between Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Trust and Certitude, a mental health charity. The service aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for adults in a mental health crisis, as an alternative to using other crisis services. It has been in place since January 2019 and is an entirely new service.

Findings

Overall, Healthwatch Lewisham staff and the Enter and View ARs were impressed with the space and the service available at The Harbour.

Efforts to create a safe, therapeutic and supportive environment were evident. Staff appeared committed and invested in the project, the people that access the service and continually capturing feedback from service users.

Staff recognised that because the service is relatively new there is room for improvement.

Through observation and interview, Healthwatch Lewisham staff felt improvements could be made to the information available and awareness of the service, activities scheduled, and communication between staff teams