Background The recent position paper by the Royal College of Psychiatrists on the need for in-patient beds for people with learning disabilities was published as part of the response to the Winterbourne View scandal. The paper made it clear that it was important to make a very clear distinction between the function of in-patient support [read the full story…]
Historically, eating disorders have been discussed in a very black and white fashion; either you do or you don’t have one. Whilst this may be beneficial in terms of research and diagnosis, it isn’t particularly helpful for those that sit in the grey area between the two. People in this grey area are often referred [read the full story…]
The National Health Service is aiming to provide a patient-centred health service, and this involves all staff and all departments. NHS England has produced four “bite-size guides to patient and public participation”. The guides, in particular the first one, are aimed at clinical commissioning groups, to help them involve the public, especially patients and carers, [read the full story…]
Compulsory community treatment (CCT) is a method used in many industrialized nations, including the UK and Australia, that allows clinicians to legally oblige those with severe mental illness to comply with treatment in the community and can allow clinicians to recall them to hospital merely because they are not compliant with an aspect of treatment [read the full story…]
The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) have just launched a new guideline on caries prevention in children. The guideline replaces two existing guidelines; SIGN 47 on preventing dental caries in children at high caries risk and SIGN 83 on prevention and management of dental decay in the pre-school child. The guideline was developed using SIGN [read the full story…]
Background The Care Programme Approach (CPA) was introduced in the early 1990s as a response to a number of high profile situations involving significant lack of coordination of care. The CPA meant that anyone with experiencing severe mental health problems and who meets one or more criteria, should have their care co-ordinated under the Care [read the full story…]
Maternal depression is a serious mental health condition and does not only affect the mental health of the mother, but also the physical health of her children. One meta-analysis found that up to 19% of women in developed countries experienced an episode of depression in the 3-month prenatal period (Gavin et al., 2005). More specifically, [read the full story…]
Background Personalised or individualised supports are those which respond to unique needs of an individual, which focus on their personal assets and abilities; accentuate choice and control and are delivered in the community alongside other citizens. In recent years in the Republic of Ireland, there has been an increasing focus in public policy on personalisation [read the full story…]
Depression in teenagers is a significant problem, with serious and potentially fatal consequences. Estimates of how many teenagers have depression at any one time vary between countries, but overall about 4-5% of mid to late teens worldwide are thought to experience clinical depression every year (Thapar et al, 2012). Much of the current knowledge of [read the full story…]
The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the costs for the three orthodontic retention methods using a cost-minimisation analysis (CMA). The cost analysis was based on previous randomised controlled trial data (Dental Elf 22nd Jan 2013). Patients were randomised into 3 groups with retention appliances being placed within 1 hour of debonding. [read the full story…]
