Wednesday, 29 February
On Wednesday night I attended, along with
other Royal College Presidents, a very interesting dinner
with Sir David Nicholson and Sir Bruce Keogh, on the role
the Royal Colleges could play in taking forward commissioning and
the delivery of quality service. It was held under Chatham House
rules, but gave me great food for thought which I’ll reflect back
in future blogs.
What did give me considerable food for thought
was the article published online yesterday evening:
Why does mental health not get the attention it deserves? An
application of the Shiffman and Smith framework, by Mark
Tomlinson and Crick Lund. Mark works at the Centre for Public
Mental Health in Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and Crick
works in the Centre for Public Mental Health, Department of
Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town. What
they recommend in terms of increasing attention to global mental
health would equally apply to increasing attention to mental health
in the UK. So for those of you that don’t want to look at the whole
article, their recommendations to increasing attention to global
(UK) mental health are:
1) Greater community cohesion and
international government structures need to be developed to
contribute to a more unified voice regarding global mental
health.
2) A common framework
of integrated innovation is needed to ensure that global mental
health speaks in the language of national and international policy
makers.
3) For global mental
health to gain significant attention, a coherent evidence base for
scalable interventions that can be shown to have an impact at the
structural level – on economic development and human well-being –
is central.
4) A social
justice and human rights approach is important.
5) Current
innovative strategies for addressing stigma need to be evaluated
and expanded.
I would really like to get a
debate and dialogue going on this. I am going to a medical
conference in South Africa in April, and hope to bring back ideas
on how to harness all the work that is being done under the
umbrella of the International Advisory Committee to enrich the
global mental health agenda.
We have been in discussions with the Royal Society of Medicine,
about organising a conference in spring 2013 that focuses on global
mental health. I hope this would be an exciting and challenging
conference, that is not afraid to ask some difficult questions and
take us out of our comfort zone with regard to this topic. I’m
excited by the proposal, because I’m sure it would be a very
popular conference, and will keep you posted on developments.
Another paper that came to my attention
yesterday was one published in the Lancet, and covered by
a number of media outlets including BBC News. The
headline reported was that people with mental illness are four
times more likely to be a victim of violence. The research team
from John Moores University in Liverpool and the World Health
Organisation in Geneva found that, in general, people with any sort
of disability were at greater risk of violence, with 3%
experiencing violence in the previous 12 months. However, those
with learning difficulties were more vulnerable, with more than 6%
reporting violence against them, and adults with mental illnesses
were even more so. The study found that more than 24% said they had
been the victim of some form of violence in the preceding year.
Professor Mark Bellis, who led the study, said the results
suggested a wider problem. He said: "Lifetime exposure to violence,
and the proportions of individuals with disability who are directly
threatened with violence or otherwise live in fear of becoming a
victim, are likely to be substantially higher than our
estimate."
Sue
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