What’s new in Mental Health?
April 2013
Mental health service users experienced a significant overall reduction in the discrimination they experienced between 2008 and 2011, according to research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The evaluation of the Time to Change (TTC) programme in England 2007-2011 says that these results are in clear contrast to the lack of improvement in public attitudes in the last 10-15 years. The researchers say they were unable to determine the exact contribution of TTC to the changes reported, but that it is possible to be fairly confident that changes seen after its anti-stigma campaign were due to the programme. See http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/202/s55/s45.full
The Royal College of General Practitioners has appointed a clinical champion for youth mental health, Dr Jane Roberts. Dr Roberts is a salaried GP and a senior lecturer in general practice at the University of Sunderland. She is chair of the RCGP Adolescent Health Group, the RCGP representative on the Children and Young People Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme expert reference group, and a NICE guideline development group member on social anxiety disorder. She has worked on developing a clinical service for 5-19 year olds with emotional or behavioural difficulties in general practice.
March 2013
Dementia care is not meeting needs Care for people with dementia is not meeting their needs as services are struggling to cope, according to the Care Quality Commission’s latest Care Update. The findings show people living in a care home and suffering from dementia are more likely to go to hospital with avoidable conditions such as urinary infections. Once there, they are more likely to stay longer, be readmitted or die than those without dementia.
http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/documents/cqc_care_update_issue_2.pdf
Colleagues pay tribute to Prof Helen Lester Colleagues from the Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health (JCP) have paid tribute to the panel’s co-founder, Professor Helen Lester, who died in March after a short illness. Prof Lester was a GP in Birmingham and professor of primary care at the University of Birmingham, and, the JCP says, `ensured that clear thinking, plain speaking and practical change were at the heart of all the JCP’s work’.
http://www.jcpmh.info/in-memory-of-helen-lester/
February 2013
People with mental health disability are at greater risk of being victims of violence Research published in the journal PLOS ONE has found that compared to those without any disability, the odds of being a victim of violence in the past year were three-fold higher for those with mental illness-related disability, and two-fold higher for those with physical disability. Study author Dr Paul Moran, from King’s Institute of Psychiatry, commented: `Our study highlights that contrary to popular opinion, people with mental health problems are much more likely to be victims of violence as opposed to perpetrators of violence’.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0055952
April 2013
Mental health service users experienced a significant overall reduction in the discrimination they experienced between 2008 and 2011, according to research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The evaluation of the Time to Change (TTC) programme in England 2007-2011 says that these results are in clear contrast to the lack of improvement in public attitudes in the last 10- 15 years. The researchers say they were unable to determine the exact contribution of TTC to the changes reported, but that it is possible to be fairly confident that changes seen after its anti-stigma campaign were due to the programme. See http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/202/s55/s45.full
The Royal College of General Practitioners has appointed a clinical champion for youth mental health, Dr Jane Roberts. Dr Roberts is a salaried GP and a senior lecturer in general practice at the University of Sunderland. She is chair of the RCGP Adolescent Health Group, the RCGP representative on the Children and Young People Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme expert reference group, and a NICE guideline development group member on social anxiety disorder. She has worked on developing a clinical service for 5-19 year olds with emotional or behavioural difficulties in general practice.