In Herefordshire mental health care is provided by a partnership of statutory and independent agencies.

Statutory Agencies

Two agencies funded by the government share responsibility for provision and delivery of mental health care in Herefordshire

Herefordshire Primary Care Trust (HPCT)
HPCT is the local NHS organisation that plans provides and purchases health services for the people of Herefordshire.
It has three main responsibilities:
1. It provides all the NHS community and mental health services in the county.
2. It develops and improves GP and other clinical services
3. It purchases other sorts of health care for Herefordshire people from Hereford Hospitals Trust and from other specialist centres in Birmingham and Cheltenham.

Social Care and Strategic Housing
is the service provided by Herefordshire Council that is responsible for all social care services to a wide range of client groups. This includes people with mental health problems.

Independent Agencies
play an important role in providing services and help to people with mental health problems. None of them are as big or have the same spending power as Health and Social Services but are increasingly funded by them to provide specific services. In Herefordshire the largest of these is Herefordshire
MIND which has a long and established history of working alongside the statutory sector in Herefordshire. It provides a Day Centre, residential care, supported housing, low cost counselling and an education service.

There are also many other smaller independent and voluntary organisations and individuals who contribute to mental health care in Herefordshire which are also listed within this site.

Joint Working
All Health, Social Care and Independent agencies are required by the government to work together in partnership to meet the needs of service users. The pace of integration of services will increase over the next few years. In Herefordshire all statutory mental health staff from Health and Social Services are managed by a single Mental Health Service Manager and work from joint team bases.