Monday, 27 February
Yesterday, the Sunday Express
launched a new
Crusade for Better Mental Health (26 February, p.10). This
is a very interesting new campaign, but perhaps more interesting
was the
supporting commentary by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on
p.11.
Mr Clegg gave "three cheers" to the paper and
promised to continue to "champion this cause". I hope this means
he, and the rest of the coalition government, will support the
amendment giving parity of esteem to
mental and physical health services when the Health and Social
Care Bill returns to the Commons next month.
Tonight, I am at a dinner organised by the NHS
Commissioning Board. I hope they will take on board all the work
that our College is doing through the Joint Commissioning Panel for
Mental Health to inform and support the commissioning of mental
health services.
In the meantime, I wanted to take this
opportunity to raise awareness of some of the excellent work being
carried out by our International Advisory
Committee. There are some really good projects going on, thanks
to very active involvement from members from a wide range of
groups.
The trainees, via their European group, are
doing a number of exchanges across EU countries. There is so much
that can be learnt from different systems and cultures, and I hope
that we can work towards a point when experience working in other
countries is seen as a more mainstream part of core training.
The College Sub-Committee on Iraq has recently
published their
2011 annual report and a longer
report detailing their activity over the last 7 years. These
documents demonstrate what can be achieved even in such challenging
circumstances.
Sue
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