The Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee is scheduled to meet on 1 December 2025 to discuss a range of topics, including community connectedness, the NHS 10 Year Plan, a proposed NHS Foundation Trust merger, and suicide prevention. The committee will also review its work programme and action tracker.

North London NHS Foundation Trust Proposed Merger

The committee will receive an update on the proposed merger by acquisition of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (TPFT) by the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). The report pack states that the purpose of this merger is to create an exceptional, integrated mental health offering across North Central London (NCL) and beyond.

According to the report pack, the merger is driven by TPFT's unsustainable financial pressures, with NHS England (London) and the North Central England Integrated Care Board agreeing that acquisition by NLFT is the optimal path for long-term sustainability and service preservation.

The report pack outlines several strategic benefits of the merger, including:

• Structural consolidation enabling the integration of Children & Young People (CYP) Services across NCL boroughs
• Addressing fragmentation, inequity, and inconsistency in community mental health service delivery for CYP
• Establishing a consistent Core Offer providing improved, coordinated support to CYP, parents, and carers.

The report pack also includes a snapshot of staff engagement at TPFT, with positive feedback from staff members. One Principal Clinician / Clinical Psychologist, Jasmin Chin, is quoted as saying:

It felt important for us to come together as one collective body of staff, to acknowledge our shared histories & values, as well as unique ways of working across the Trust, ahead of the merger. I was pleased to hear from NLFT colleagues that they also value offering high quality care close to where people live, trauma informed practice & leadership and that equity of outcome was a key principle.

The planned date for the new enlarged NLFT is 1 April 2026.

Suicide Prevention

The committee will discuss suicide prevention in Camden. The report pack states that the report will present data to understand the picture of suicide in Camden, provide an overview of how Camden responds to suicides and possible suicide clusters, and outline the approach to suicide prevention in Camden.

The report pack emphasises that the approach to suicide prevention in Camden is driven by the local Suicide Prevention Strategy, with the key messages that:

• Suicide is preventable
• It's safe to talk about suicide
• Suicide prevention is everyone's business

The report pack states that the strategy's priority areas to deliver the goal of reducing suicides in Camden are:

• Build a partnership for suicide prevention
• Enable a skilled workforce, confident to address suicide risk
• Increase support to key high-risk groups
• Improve data collection, monitoring, and insight

The report pack notes that a Suicide Cluster Response Plan has been developed based on national guidance¹, which provides a process to bring organisations together to ascertain whether a cluster has occurred and to take mitigating action.

The Online Safety Act 2023, which was passed on 26 October 2023, and introduced various criminal offences on 31 January 2024, including encouraging or assisting serious self-harm, is mentioned in the report pack. The Act requires sites to remove illegal suicide and self-harm content.

Community Connectedness and Friendships

The committee will receive an update on progress and next steps for the implementation of the community connectedness and friendships short-term priority within the Camden Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-30². The report pack outlines progress against the three activity areas of the Community Connectedness and Friendships Working Group:

• Improve identification and engagement of people who are chronically lonely and isolated.
• Explore service area specific opportunities to help reduce social isolation and loneliness.
• Undertake a borough wide communications campaign to increase awareness and reduce stigma.

The report pack also highlights other related work on reducing social isolation in Camden.

The Camden, together campaign is mentioned in the report pack as the first step in a longer-term communications strategy to reduce loneliness and improve community connectedness.

System Transformation: NHS 10 Year Plan

The committee will discuss the NHS '10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future'. The report pack states that the plan is intended to support the reinvention of the health service in line with the core principles of the NHS.

The report pack summarises engagement in the development of the NHS 10 Year Plan, the plan itself, and how system transformation work across Camden coheres to the ambitions of the plan.

The report pack also outlines the Integrated Care Board's (ICB) change programme to date, until 1 April 2026, including the merger with North West London Integrated Care Board and the ICB's shift to becoming a Strategic Commissioner.

The report pack notes that the East Camden Integrated Neighbourhood Team is named as an example of best practice in the Secretary of State's speech and in the Plan's afterword. The report pack describes the team as bringing together GPs, community health teams, mental health, social work and care, wider statutory services, and the voluntary sector in one place, providing more coordinated and proactive care for local people.

Other items

The committee will also discuss the update of the Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care, and the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee Work Programme and Action Tracker.