Editorial
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200300011 |
| Pages | 2-2 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Author | Elizabeth Parker |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Editorial
Health Service. Such ‘across boundary’ working is also
spreading south of the border – for example, the
introduction of new types of worker (start, support and
recovery workers and graduate primary care mental
health workers) and the proposed extension of
prescribing powers to pharmacists, psychologists and
nurses. The number of specialist mental health
pharmacists is growing and Celia Feetam, the first
pharmacist to write for the Review, describes the
valuable contribution that they are making to improved
patient care in respect of both policy and practice.
‘Across boundary working’ is also blurring the line
between care givers and care receivers. Carey Bamber
and Mick McKeown advocate that service users should
be systematically involved in all aspects of the mental
health training agenda and describe steps being taken
to achieve this in the north west of England. They see
a more proactive approach to the training needs of the
voluntary sector as a means of both strengthening the
mental health workforce and bringing about a more
inclusive role for service users. Their plea has been
anticipated in respect of implementing evidence-based
practice. Charlie Brooker and Alison Brabban report
that service users and carers actively collaborate in both
the curriculum development and teaching activities of
the 80 or more psychosocial intervention training
programmes in England.
The immense effort being put into developing and
training the mental health workforce stems from
national policy level through to individual local
projects. The recruitment net is being extended to
include a wider range of people, and there is increasing
recognition of the experience and knowledge that
service users and carers can bring not only to care
planning and training but also to the actual delivery of
care. This is our best opportunity yet to ensure that
services meet the mental health needs of users.
Elizabeth Parker
2The Mental Health Review Volume 8 Issue 2 June 2003 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2003
raining, workforce development and
capacity building for the mental health service of the
future is the theme of this issue of the Mental Health
Review. It is an enormous topic – the workforce is the
mental health service and its strength and skills
determine the quality of the response offered to people
who seek help at times of mental distress. The
problems of recruiting and then retaining staff, the
realisation that mental health problems are best treated
earlier rather than later, and the burden of mental ill
heath on sufferers, carers and employers lie behind the
drive to strengthen and improve the workforce and to
employ new types of worker.
The Government’s agenda to ensure that a properly
trained workforce is in place is set out by Roslyn Hope
and John Allcock in the Framework Feature. This is a
multi-faceted, multi-layered action programme that
ranges in scope from establishing a structure to drive
forward mental health workforce development to a
detailed examination of a specific problem within one
discipline. The impact on one primary care trust,
Wandsworth, of the new guidance and directives is
described by Melba Wilson who shows the complexity
involved in taking forward workforce issues across all
disciplines on the operational front.
The sheer uphill nature of the task is portrayed by
John Hook in Case Study I in which he describes an
attempt to improve the quality of the adult mental
health service in Southampton. The outcomes were
mixed: significant and lasting changes did occur but
the project fizzled out due to structural changes and
the loss of the key managers involved. This is an
important lesson to learn: stability of the working
environment, positive management support and a
stable and secure workforce are essential if working
practices are to be changed so as to provide a better
quality service. This is exemplified in Case Study II
where John Duncan provides a valuable account of
how generic clinicians were successfully introduced
into the Lanarkshire Child and Adolescent Mental
T
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