Policy watch
| Published date | 25 May 2012 |
| Pages | 60-65 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20428301211232441 |
| Date | 25 May 2012 |
| Author | Simon Lawton‐Smith |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Policy watch
Simon Lawton-Smith
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to review the last ten years of developments in mental health policy across
the UK and to suggest how the mental health world may look in ten years’ time.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarises and comments on policy documents and
initiatives since 2000.
Findings – The paper suggests how changes to policy might impact on mental health services.
Originality/value – The paper updates knowledge of recent and forthcoming mental health policy.
Keywords Mental health policy,Mental health strategy, Wellbeing, Quality of life, Mental health services
Paper type Conceptual paper
As this is my final Policy watch piece, I thought I might use it to bring together various strands
of mental health policy into a ‘‘State of the Nation’’ address focussing on where mental health
policy (and provision) was ten years ago, where we are now, and where we might be in ten
years’ time.
It won’t be practical to try to cover all four UK countries’ different health and social care
systems, central and local government arrangements, and mental health strategies and
priorities. So forgive me if I focus primarily on England, while acknowledging in passing
aspects of policy in other parts of the UK.
Where were we ten years ago?
The New Labour Government had just taken power with its ‘‘modernising’’ agenda.
Encouragingly, it made mental health one of its threeclinical priorities in England, alongside
cancer and heart disease. A National Service Framework for Mental Health (NSFMH)
focussing on adults of working age was published in 1999, and specific targets set out in the
NHS Plan of 2000. These included, for example, 170 new assertive outreach teams by April
2001 and a further 50 by 2003; 335 crisis resolution teams by 2004; 1,000 new primary care
mental health workers employed to help GPs to benefit 300,000 people by 2004; and a
20 per cent reduction in the suicide rate by 2010.
A National Service Framework for Older People arrived in 2001, and a National Service
Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services in 2004. Both contained
specific sections on mental health, to create a framework for mental health covering all ages.
The government also appointed a National Director for Mental Health (commonly, if
misleadingly, known as the mental health ‘‘czar’’) to help drive through its agenda. In his
words, a quality service was to have six elements. It would treat patients with dignity,creating
the right environment for them to recover; recognise the skills of families acting as carers; link
service activity to need; make the best and most effective treatments available; emphasise the
safety of patients; and be delivered by a skilled and motivated workforce (Appleby, 2000).
PAGE 60
j
MENTAL HEALTHAND SOCIAL INCLUSION
j
VOL. 16 NO. 2 2012, pp. 60-65, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2042-8308 DOI 10.1108/20428301211232441
Simon Lawton-Smith is
Head of Policy at The
Mental Health Foundation,
London, UK.
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