In October 2002 the Department of Health and Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) initiated the Bamford Review, a major, wide-ranging and independent review of the law, policy and provision affecting people with mental health needs or a learning disability in Northern Ireland.
In 2009 a forensic mental health and learning disability/ intellectual development disability services sub-group of the Bamford Taskforce was established to take forward recommendations from this review. Leading from this, the Forensic Managed Care Network was established in June 2019.
The Forensic Managed Care Network is aligned to key recent strategies including:
Working across Health and Social Care (HSC) services and Criminal Justice Agencies, the Network aims to positively shape future service delivery by, promoting good practice examples, informing commissioners of priority areas of need and sharing learning and research to make evidence-based service improvements across the region.
The Forensic Managed Care Network takes a Human Rights, whole system, person-centred approach to promoting collaboration between all relevant services to ensure access to consistently safe, high quality, seamless and effective services at the right time and in the right place.
This whole system approach improves co-ordination of cross-departmental and multi-agency working across Health and Social Care services and Criminal Justice Agencies. It also enables co-production with community and voluntary partners commissioned to provide support services and with service-users and carers with lived experience.
The Network works in partnership with:
With a strong focus on research the Network will develop links internationally for mutual exchange of learning and development.
The objectives of the Forensic Managed Care Network are to:
A small management team has been established at the Health and Social Care Board to build on partnership working and strengthen strategic oversight and accountability of the Forensic Managed Care Network.
If you would like further information on the FMCN contact:
Forensic Network Management Team @ ForensicManagedCareNetwork@hscni.net