By Pamela McGowan Health reporter

Last updated at 15:07, Monday, 26 October 2009

A website that has helped to slash suicide and self-harm rates across north Cumbria has won a national award.

The social-networking site gives people with complex mental health problems a place to go for help when they are reaching crisis-point.

It is run and moderated by people who have themselves suffered from personality disorders and includes a real-time chatroom so users can share their experiences and ask for help and advice.

The North Cumbria Itinerant Therapeutic Community website – www.itc4u.org – was short-listed in the BT E-health Insider Awards 2009.

Earlier this week representatives travelled to the awards ceremony in London, where they were presented with the Best Use of I M & T to Promote Patient Safety gong.

The social-networking site was launched in north Cumbria back in 2005 but has been so successful it is soon to be rolled out countywide.

In its first year of operation health bosses saw suicide attempts in the area drop by 69 per cent and incidents of self-harm fall by 48 per cent.

On top of this, admissions to casualty fell by 80 per cent, admissions to psychiatric hospitals were halved and the number of days patients spent on psychiatric wards dropped by 90 per cent. Related contact with the police also dropped by 70 per cent in this period.

The website was set up by the psychotherapy department at the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs mental health services in the county, as part of a national push to improve the support available.

The sophisticated feedback system means any online exchanges which raise significant concerns can be flagged up with professionals.

The website gives patients somewhere they can go to learn more about their illness, while the Peer to Peer (P2p) aspect offers extra support out-of-hours and outside their usual treatment channels.

Dr Mike Rigby, a psychiatrist in psychotherapy here in north Cumbria, said: “What we have done is to transfer the culture of our therapeutic community to a dedicated social networking site so that the work can continue beyond the two days each week when we meet face to face.”

First published at 11:33, Monday, 26 October 2009
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk