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Editorial

Editorial t is four years since the Mental Health effective liaison between specialists and primary care Review last considered mental health services at the and to develop shared care in response to the needs of primary care level. At that time mental health had just patients, the practice, and the associated specialist been made a national priority and the focus turned mental health team’. towards realising the commitments made in the But the mental ill health component of primary National Service Framework for Mental Health and The care is enormous and far outweighs that of physical NHS Plan. Since then, there has been a raft of disease. Action across the wider community is needed initiatives including the recruitment of primary care to generate a mentally healthy society. In England the graduate mental health workers; the introduction of the NSF, standard one, requires health and social services new GMS contract containing quality standards in all to promote mental health for all; different areas of care, including mental health, with arrangements pertain in Scotland. Margaret Maxwell achievement linked to resource allocation; and funds and Allyson McCollam give an interesting account of provided to support the training and development of the Scottish mental health scene at the primary care the mental health workforce. level where Community Health Partnerships have In this issue of the Review Frankie Pidd, in the been set up with three objectives: to promote mental Framework Feature, revisits the primary care scene health and wellbeing, to support mentally ill people and is cautiously optimistic in her assessment of and their carers in fulfilling their lives in the progress and the way in which primary care mental community, and to provide crisis services. The message health services are likely to develop. She outlines from all these papers is, as Frankie Pidd says, that several visions for the future which ‘significantly ‘achieving complex quality improvement relies on redraw our distinctions between primary and secondary sophisticated, intensive, iterative, development care, and service provision and commissioning’. The processes’. commissioning of mental health services is also As I write this editorial the new Mental Health Bill addressed by Linda Gask in her study of clinical has just been published, again to much criticism. The governance in 12 primary care trusts. The overall main concerns focus on the proposed increased powers picture was found to be very variable with for compulsory care and treatment which seem to fly in commissioning often not included in mental health the face of the government’s intention stated in the clinical governance activity, which itself tended to be White Paper Reforming the Mental Health Act (1999) to confused, fragmented and isolated. ‘reduce, wherever possible, the number of individuals Working in partnership is, of course, key to the who are subject to the use of powers for compulsory positive evolution of primary care mental health care and treatment’. By the time you read this in services, a point highlighted by contributors. A social December many of you will be following with close services’ perspective is provided by Tim O’Shea who, interest the progress of the Joint Committee on the speaking from direct personal experience, emphasises Draft Bill. The committee is due to report to both the necessity of partnership and reform, instead of the Houses of Parliament on 31 March 2005. More of this damaging sequence of re-organisations, in developing in the next issue. an effective and integrated mental health service. In With very best wishes for Christmas and the New the Case Study, Richard Byng examines the primary- Year. specialist mental health care interface via the Elizabeth Parker placement of link workers in a project to ‘develop 2 The Mental Health Review Volume 9 Issue 4 December 2004 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2004 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Mental Health Review Journal Emerald Publishing

Editorial

Parker, Elizabeth
Mental Health Review Journal , Volume 9 (4): 1 – Dec 1, 2004
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1361-9322
DOI
10.1108/13619322200400034
Publisher site
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Abstract

t is four years since the Mental Health effective liaison between specialists and primary care Review last considered mental health services at the and to develop shared care in response to the needs of primary care level. At that time mental health had just patients, the practice, and the associated specialist been made a national priority and the focus turned mental health team’. towards realising the commitments made in the But the mental ill health component of primary National Service Framework for Mental Health and The care is enormous and far outweighs that of physical NHS Plan. Since then, there has been a raft of disease. Action across the wider community is needed initiatives including the recruitment of primary care to generate a mentally healthy society. In England the graduate mental health workers; the introduction of the NSF, standard one, requires health and social services new GMS contract containing quality standards in all to promote mental health for all; different areas of care, including mental health, with arrangements pertain in Scotland. Margaret Maxwell achievement linked to resource allocation; and funds and Allyson McCollam give an interesting account of provided to support the training and development of the Scottish mental health scene at the primary care the mental health workforce. level where Community Health Partnerships have In this issue of the Review Frankie Pidd, in the been set up with three objectives: to promote mental Framework Feature, revisits the primary care scene health and wellbeing, to support mentally ill people and is cautiously optimistic in her assessment of and their carers in fulfilling their lives in the progress and the way in which primary care mental community, and to provide crisis services. The message health services are likely to develop. She outlines from all these papers is, as Frankie Pidd says, that several visions for the future which ‘significantly ‘achieving complex quality improvement relies on redraw our distinctions between primary and secondary sophisticated, intensive, iterative, development care, and service provision and commissioning’. The processes’. commissioning of mental health services is also As I write this editorial the new Mental Health Bill addressed by Linda Gask in her study of clinical has just been published, again to much criticism. The governance in 12 primary care trusts. The overall main concerns focus on the proposed increased powers picture was found to be very variable with for compulsory care and treatment which seem to fly in commissioning often not included in mental health the face of the government’s intention stated in the clinical governance activity, which itself tended to be White Paper Reforming the Mental Health Act (1999) to confused, fragmented and isolated. ‘reduce, wherever possible, the number of individuals Working in partnership is, of course, key to the who are subject to the use of powers for compulsory positive evolution of primary care mental health care and treatment’. By the time you read this in services, a point highlighted by contributors. A social December many of you will be following with close services’ perspective is provided by Tim O’Shea who, interest the progress of the Joint Committee on the speaking from direct personal experience, emphasises Draft Bill. The committee is due to report to both the necessity of partnership and reform, instead of the Houses of Parliament on 31 March 2005. More of this damaging sequence of re-organisations, in developing in the next issue. an effective and integrated mental health service. In With very best wishes for Christmas and the New the Case Study, Richard Byng examines the primary- Year. specialist mental health care interface via the Elizabeth Parker placement of link workers in a project to ‘develop 2 The Mental Health Review Volume 9 Issue 4 December 2004 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2004

Journal

Mental Health Review Journal – Emerald Publishing

Published: Dec 1, 2004

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