Editorial
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Pages | 2-2 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200200021 |
| Author | Elizabeth Parker |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Editorial
Elizabeth Parker
Editor
how they might best be used.
The difficulties of developing, nurturing and
maintaining partnerships are examined from two
different but complementary viewpoints. Paddy
Cooney, in the Personal Perspective, writes from first-
hand experience of bringing health and social services
together in the Somerset Partnership and Edward
Peck and Alix Crawford examine health and social
care cultures, an analysis illuminated by findings from
studies of the cultures of merging companies. It seems
clear that the cultural characteristics of organisations
embarking on partnership working are key to the
success of the enterprise and so, following from this,
the crucial question as to whether culture can be
modified is examined.
Some services could not exist without close and
inter-dependent working by individuals and agencies.
Frank Burbach and colleagues, also of the Somerset
Partnership, describe setting up a multi-disciplinary
and multi-agency training scheme to underpin service
development. Such an undertaking is grounded in
partnership working and the development of the
scheme again testifies to the achievements of the
trust. Another example of developing a service based
on working in partnership is presented by Martine
Sandford. The Breathing Space Project is concerned
with the mental health of refugees in the UK and the
article describes the work being carried out jointly by
the Refugee Council and the Medical Foundation for
the Care of Victims of Torture. This is an account of
providing a service to people in extreme need – not
only mentally ill but culturally displaced and often
traumatised – who require specialised and co-
ordinated input from a variety of sources.
In conclusion, the evidence from this issue of the
Mental Health Review is that organisations and
individuals in the mental health field are to varying
degrees embracing working in partnership. Perhaps
we are at last making real progress towards providing
seamless services to mentally ill people.
2The Mental Health Review Volume 7 Issue 3 September 2002 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2002
ver since the creation of the NHS in 1946,
which in 1948 saw responsibility for the asylums pass
from the local authorities and the Board of Control to
the new national health service, governments have
been struggling to provide a unified-at-point-of-
delivery service for mentally ill people. Closer working
between the agencies involved has consistently been
identified as the means of achieving this but has been
variously described over the decades. Better Services for
the Mentally Ill (Department of Health and Social
Security, 1975) spoke of a ‘philosophy of integration’
and ‘a co-ordinated strategy’ and Caring for People
(Department of Health, 1989) urged ‘collaborative
working’. In 1997 the outgoing Conservative
government produced a Green Paper entitled
Developing Partnerships in Mental Health which restated
‘the Government’s commitment to developing
partnerships in the care of people with severe mental
illness’ (Department of Health, 1997). Three months
later the incoming Labour government stuck with this
commitment and set about furnishing the means to
facilitate and enable providers of mental health
services to work in partnership together. Legislation
was introduced, the Health Act 1999, which allows the
use of pooled health and social services’ budgets, lead
commissioning, and integrated providers.
Now, three years further on, this issue of the Mental
Health Review explores how partnership working is
developing, examines the hurdles inherent in bringing
health and social services operationally closer, and
gives examples of partnership working in practice. But
to start with, some basic questions need to be asked
such as what is working in partnership? What does it
entail and how may it be fostered? These matters are
addressed by Alix Crawford and Edward Peck in the
Framework Feature in what they describe as the
‘rough guide to working in partnership’. In line with
this practical approach, John Chapman and Ruth
Smith set out clearly those provisions of the Health Act
1999 which facilitate partnership working and discuss
E
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