Quality of life and mental health: What questions should we ask?

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In his debut blog, Martin Webber, Reader in Social Work at the University of York, asks how we can meaningfully measure quality of life with and for people living with mental health problems.

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Does racial discrimination affect the mental health of children and young people?

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Recent adult mental health policy initiatives, such as the Delivering Race Equality programme (PDF) show the increasing recognition of racial discrimination in NHS mental health services. In 2012 the NHS Confederation issued guidance on achieving race equality in mental health, which was summarised on the Mental Elf a while ago. These UK policy developments on [read the full story…]

More guides to help GPs commission mental health services

Do you tell your patients with knee osteoarthritis to exercise?

A year ago I blogged about the new mental health commissioning guides that the Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health (JCP-MH) had published for GPs. The JCP-MH is a collaboration between public sector organisations, charities and professional bodies. Their aim is to “inspire commissioners to improve mental health and wellbeing, using a values based commissioning [read the full story…]

Measuring National Well-being: first annual report from the Office for National Statistics

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The Measuring National Well-being programme was set up in 2010 with a focused aim, to ‘develop and publish an accepted and trusted set of National Statistics which help people understand and monitor well-being’. The idea here is that we need to add meaningful economic, social and environmental measures to sit alongside the traditional Gross Domestic [read the full story…]

A joined-up solution for social inclusion and mental health recovery: new briefing from the Centre for Mental Health

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Recovery is an increasingly popular concept and philosophy in mental health circles and rightly so. Many of us who have direct experience of suffering from a mental health condition extol the virtues of an educational self management approach that helps individuals to take responsibility for themselves.  This kind of approach can help us develop the [read the full story…]

NICE publish new guidance on the social and emotional wellbeing of vulnerable children under five

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These new recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) cover home visits, early education and childcare for vulnerable children. The public health guidance recognises that disadvantage before birth and in a child’s early years can have life-long, negative effects on health and wellbeing. It aims to ensure that both universal and [read the full story…]

NICE publish draft public heath guidance for social and emotional wellbeing in young children

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This new guidance from NICE is aimed at people responsible for ensuring the social and emotional wellbeing of children aged under 5 years. It will be of interest to professionals who plan and commission children’s services, as well as midwives, health visitors, GPs, paediatricians, practitioners working in child and adolescent mental health services, social workers, [read the full story…]