Need a translation? Visit health information in other languages. If you need urgent help, call NHS 111 - tell them you need a translator.
Coronavirus: Wash hands, cover face, make space…. Find our Covid-19 information and updates here.
You can find up to date information on Trust services as well as NHS advice and guidance and links to other national and local support resources.
We understand that there is a lot of anxiety around the safety of the vaccines. The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines are safe and effective. They will give you the best protection against coronavirus.
A new community survey has just been launched as part of South London Listens to help find the solutions to the impact Covid-19 has had on the mental health of our communities.
We continue to see patients at all our sites, as well as in their homes, and have a number of measures in place to ensure our sites are Covid secure, including the wearing of face masks and coverings, deep cleaning, one-way signage and cleaning stations.
The Community Perinatal Mental Health Service provides a single point of access to community perinatal mental health services for people resident in Richmond, Kingston, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth.
We are a week-day only, 9-5 service.
The philosophy of the service is to, whenever possible, minimise disruption to family life.
We believe that the women who use our services should feel respected and staff strive to maintain privacy and dignity at all times.
We aim to work collaboratively and encourage mothers to be actively involved, whenever possible, in the development of their treatment plan.
Our team can assess and advise on the management of women who are in the perinatal period dealing with mental health problems, such as:
Fax: 020 3513 4461
Email: ssg-tr.perinatalswlstg@nhs.net
Psychiatric emergencies should be referred should follow the usual emergency care route.
There is a duty person available everyday to answer any queries about referrals and to triage referrals that have been sent.
The team comprises of:
Referrals to the service should be directed to the Multi-disciplinary Team (MDT) which offers care and treatment to women experiencing:
Telephone: 020 3513 6577
Fax: 020 3513 4461
Email: ssg-tr.perinatalswlstg@nhs.net
Our neuropsychiatry service is an outpatient regional service. It provides assessment and treatment for adults with neurological illness or head injuries who have associated neuropsychiatric problems.
Patients with functional neurological disorders and organic psychiatric conditions are also assessed and managed. The service is closely allied to the regional neuroscience centre based at the Atkinson Morley Wing of St. George's Hospital, serving SW London and Surrey.
We take pride in providing evidence-based cutting-edge clinical services which follow the latest clinical and research advances and set national examples.
This service offers assessment and treatment for patients with:
We accept referrals from a wide range of neuroscience and mental health professionals, as well as from GPs as long as they are appropriate.
New patients can be seen whilst they are inpatients or day patients at one of the neurology or neurosurgical wards of St. George's Hospital or Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton.
However, the majority of referrals involve outpatient assessment and treatment.
Our Traumatic Stress Service (TSS) is national specialist service which works with people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and associated conditions.
We offer assessment, psychological treatment and consultation for people with PTSD. This can include victims of rape and sexual assault; victims of serious physical assaults; victims of serious road traffic accidents; and victims of other ‘single incident’ traumas.
Over the years our work has expanded to also include the needs of refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom have experienced multiple traumas including war, torture and violent bereavements. In addition, we treat service and ex-military personnel, as well as victims of terrorist attacks. We work with patients from a wide variety of ethnic groups and many of our clients do not speak English.
The service primarily covers five boroughs of London as well as taking some national referrals. We provide psychological assessment and treatment of PTSD on an outpatient basis. We do not have inpatient or community outreach facilities. Our clinicians work within a Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) framework and can also offer Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR). We offer appointments on Monday-Friday between 9am and 5pm.
As well as treatment, we provide teaching, training and supervision to colleagues working with PTSD. We also undertake and support a range of research activity in the areas of trauma and recovery.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by experiencing or witnessing life-threatening events. PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a traumatic event or it can occur weeks, months or even years later.
Inclusion criteria
Exclusion Criteria
Concurrent conditions requiring treatment in their own right:
Access to the TSS is via written referral, and should include an assessment letter that covers relevant background and personal history, trauma history and current symptoms. It should also include details of any previous treatment, a risk history and an up-to-date risk assessment.
Please Read more for our referral leaflet.
Treatments include anxiety management and emotion skills training, reliving and reprocessing of traumatic memories, cognitive restructuring outside and within reliving, imagery rescripting, behavioural experiments, in vivo (field) work, and schema-level work.
We offer treatment in the following formats: standard (12-16 sessions), extended (16-40 sessions) and intensive (18 hours over 5 days). Our clinicians also provide EMDR therapy for PTSD as a secondary or alternative evidence-based treatment.
Treatment is delivered by trained specialist staff using a phased treatment framework. All our treatments are compliant with NICE guidelines for PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression, self-harm and personality disorders.
Treatment is always individually tailored to the patient based on a detailed assessment of their needs. Condition-specific outcome measures are used to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment and the service.
Tailored training programmes can be developed and delivered to services to meet their requirements. For example, a training package in TF-CBT comprising face-to-face workshops, webinars and supervision was recently delivered to therapists across 10 IAPT services. Evaluation of the programme revealed large improvements in therapist knowledge, skills and self-efficacy in treating PTSD.
We also offer CPD placements to clinicians inside and outside the Trust, who already have a foundation in CBT skills and wish to develop their competencies working with PTSD and trauma. Please read more for our training leaflet.
Our core team is:
A number of other psychologists and psychiatrists work in the service part-time, undertaking specialist continuing professional development (CPD). We also offer clinical and counselling psychology trainee placements on a national basis.
Every patient completes the Post Traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) at their assessment and then at the end of their treatment. The PDS questionnaire measures the severity of their PTSD symptoms. The BDI-II measures the severity of their depression symptoms.
Our results show that, in terms of PTSD symptoms, 74% of our patients report a significant improvement after treatment, with 51% making a recovery. In terms of depression symptoms, 60% of our patients report a significant improvement after treatment, with 47% making a recovery.
“The Traumatic Stress Service has helped me to achieve many things in my life, and also with my family. When my friends see me now they see the change in me.”
“That was the hardest part for me…admitting that I had a problem. Since then, it has been difficult getting through the treatment but the end result is my life has become more manageable”.
“The doctor asked me several times to recall the incident which happened. It was really difficult to confront this memory. It was so distressing talking about the past that I wanted to leave, but after a few sessions, I started to use the treatment techniques at home and I realised that what the doctor had told me was helping me to deal with my memories of the incident”.
“When the doctor said that he wanted me to talk about what happened in the past, I was not willing to do it. But after he explained that it would help to talk about the past, I agreed. I told the doctor I would only talk about what I was able to. It was very difficult in the beginning but it got easier”.
“My advice would be to continue coming to the treatment sessions and not to stop. It will be difficult at first, but they will get results and feel much better in themselves if they finish the whole course of treatment, and they need to have patience”.
“It’s hard getting it out of you, and bearing your soul so to speak, but it is definitely worth it”.
We are a multidisciplinary national service providing treatment for the most severely ill patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) in the form of intensive homebased therapy, outpatient, and inpatient treatment.
We provide community-based treatment advice, support and joint working with CMHTs. We also provide information, education and consultation including at the primary care level and the voluntary sector for OCD and BDD. We accept patients with OCD/BDD and other neurotic conditions who have failed previous treatment elsewhere (including CBT in most cases). This service can accept referrals from GPs or any mental health care professional.
Exceptions to the above can be made in individual circumstance depending on severity and need of the individual patient.
Referrals for complex assessment and treatment may be made by the healthcare worker direct to the therapist or the service directly.
Referrals can be made by Primary and Secondary Care.
All referrals should contain:
Referrals of patients under section are not accepted. We are happy to assess once the patient is voluntary. This is to ensure that the patient is providing informed consent to undertake therapy.
Referral Criteria
Referral Form
Joint working with other healthcare professionals
Referrals for joint assessment and joint working, supervision and support may be made direct to the therapist or to the address above by Primary or Secondary Care Mental Health Teams.
The therapist will work with the CMHT or referrer to deliver therapy as part of the care plan.
We offer home-based therapy throughout England and inpatient treatment as the ONLY 24-hour staffed dedicated service. We accept referrals from throughout England for patients who have profound treatment refractory OCD or BDD. It is a service for patients who level 5 (funded by NHS England HSS). There are strict criteria to be accepted as a Nationally funded patient.
It is one of two services offered by the OCD/BDD service. The other is a local service for clients living in south west London.
The National OCD/BDD service is an enhanced community service offering intensive home-based treatment, liaison work with other teams and telephone monitoring advice for patients throughout the United Kingdom.
We combine behavioural and cognitive methods with state-of-the art psychopharmacological and other treatments where necessary. We liaise closely with specialists who work in the neurobiology and psychopharmacology of these disorders as well as with psychotherapists of various schools.
We have an experienced staff-base. Some staff have worked with these complex patients in our unit for 20 years. Our commitment to teaching and research, however, means that we have young enthusiastic professionals also joining the team which ensures we are continuously challenged to ensure our treatments are at the forefront of modern psychiatric and psychological treatment.
Each patient is fully assessed and has an individualised treatment programme. Progress is constantly monitored using questionnaires of known reliability and validity. Thus, any treatment which is not effective is discovered early and the reasons why this is the case are examined and treatment changed or modified.
Referrals of patients under section are not accepted. Once the section has expired or been rescinded then assessment will be conducted. This is to ensure the client is providing informed consent to undertake therapy.
The OCD/BDD service is unable to accept clients with a primary condition of acute psychosis, depression, anti-social behaviour, drug/alcohol dependency or current self-harm/suicidal/violent behaviour.
As the OCD/BDD service is a specialist service all referrals should derive from local community mental health teams (CMHTs) and will be ratified by a Consultant Psychiatrist.
Clients should have received the following prior to referral:
Allowance may be made in exceptional circumstances, such as:
NB. These exceptions will not be used to allow patients to gain entry to the National Service simply due to lack of organisation of local services. All CMHTs should have access, either locally or in a neighbouring Trust, to a clinical psychologist or other trained in CBT for OCD. Similarly some patients may prefer not to take medication but could do so and should be encouraged to do so before referral to the National Service.
All referrals will be expected to have a full risk assessment and description of ongoing Care Programme under the Care Programme Approach (CPA). The referrer will be expected to confirm commitment from the local CMHT (as far as possible) to collaborate with care plans drawn up by the National Service including to continue therapy and consolidate treatment gains during periods of home leave or following discharge from the Service.
Referrals of patients under section are not accepted. Once the section has expired or been rescinded then assessment will be conducted. This is to ensure the client is providing informed consent to undertake therapy.
The OCD/BDD service is unable to accept clients with a primary condition of acute psychosis, depression, anti-social behaviour, drug/alcohol dependency or current self-harm/suicidal/violent behaviour.
It is the referrers responsibility to notify the OCD/BDD service of any marked change in the clients condition once they have been assessed and are on the OCD/BDD service waiting list. The OCD/BDD service reserves the right to reassess if any significant change in a clients mental state occurs. Written referrals should come from a consultant psychiatrist and should include presenting problems, past psychiatric history, prior treatment, medication history, current care plan and the appropriate forms.
Basic Requirements Form
Inpatient admission requirements
Referrers Guide
Level 5 Pathway
The National OCD/BDD Service, affiliated with St George's University of London, is a nationally and internationally renowned treatment centre dealing with severe, complex and resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) , body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and hoarding. It is a service for patients who do NOT meet criteria for NHS England HSS funding.
If you are unsure of the suitability of a patient, we are always delighted to discuss the case with them and offer advice or specialist comprehensive assessments (subject to funding approval).
To be accepted for treatment, patients must be over 18 years and be at level 5 severity according to NICE guidelines.
Funding for this service should be sought from the local CCG.
All written referrals should come from a consultant psychiatrist and should include presenting problems, past psychiatric history, prior treatment, medication history, current care plan and the appropriate forms.
You can view Seacole ward here
Site access changes at Springfield from April - August 2021
Construction has been taking place on sections of Springfield Drive between Storey Building and Elizabeth Newton Building at Springfield University...
Trust Welcomes new Medical Director
South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust (SWLSTG) is pleased to welcome Dr Billy Boland to the Trust as its new Medical Director.
By using our website, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more