scholarly journals The future of psychotherapy in the NHS

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 432-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Obholzer

Mental health services in general are at present receiving a bad press. Recent complaints focus on two main areas: the widespread prescription of tranquillising drugs, and the social consequences of the policy of community care. There is now serious concern, both among the public and in the profession, about the over-prescription of tranquillisers. The legal implications are serious. An article in the Journal of the Medical Defence Union was recently quoted in the Bulletin: “Dr Ashton's article is a timely reminder that the prescription of benzodiazepines is now a high profile activity for the psychiatrist that has been scrutinised much more closely than many of our other functions. It is well to be aware that one of the potential onlookers is a lawyer” (Tyrer, 1988).

Author(s):  
Ian Cummins

The volume presents a critical history of deinstitutionalisation and the subsequent policy of community care. It explores the development of the asylum regime, the challenges to it and finally the development of community care. It argues that the vision of community based mental health services has never been realized. The failings of community care in the 1990s and the media reporting of high-profile cases led to a backlash against the policy. Despite this, it has been adopted across the world and international perspectives are discussed. The links between deinstitutionalization and the expansion of the use of imprisonment are examined. The final chapters examine the landscape of contemporary mental health services.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans C. Schmidt

While there is a longstanding connection between sports and politics, this past year has seen a surge of social activism in the world of sport, and numerous high-profile athletes have used their positions of prominence to raise awareness of social or political issues. Sport media, in turn, have faced questions regarding how best to cover such activism. Given the popularity of sport media, such decisions can have real implications on the views held by the public. This scholarly commentary discusses how sport media cover the social activism of athletes and presents the results of a content analysis of popular news and sports television programs, newspapers, and magazines. Overall, results indicate that sport media are giving significant and respectful coverage to athletes who advocate for social or political issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Prandini Assis

Misoprostol is a medicine with a “double” social life recorded in several places, including Brazil. Within formal and authorized health facilities, it is an essential medicine, used for life-saving obstetric procedures. On the streets, or in online informal markets, misoprostol is treated as a dangerous drug used to induce illegal abortions. In the Brazilian case, despite a rich anthropological and public health analysis of the social consequences of misoprostol’s double life, there are no studies on the legal implications. This article offers such descriptive analysis, presenting and examining a comprehensive dataset of how Brazilian courts have treated misoprostol in the past three decades. It consists of an encompassing mapping of the “when, where, how, and who” of misoprostol criminalization in Brazil, pointing to the unjust consequences of the use of criminal law for the purpose of protecting public health.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Ajanta Akhuly ◽  
Mrinmoyi Kulkarni

Mumbai, India's largest city, also has the distinction of being the most populous city in the world. The association between urbanisation and mental illness has been widely documented (Harpham & Blue, 1995, especially pp. 41–60). Mumbai is characterised by dense slums housing large migrant populations facing stressful lives. The state of publicly funded mental health facilities in Mumbai has special significance in this context, since they are the only resource available to a large economic ally vulnerable section of the population. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the public mental health services in Mumbai and to identify areas for improvement.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135581962093672
Author(s):  
Jenny Shand ◽  
Stephen Morris ◽  
Manuel Gomes

Objective To assess service use and associated expenditure across a range of care settings in one local authority in London, United Kingdom. Methods An analysis of linked electronic health and council records of adults living in the borough of Barking and Dagenham, east London, for the financial year 2016/17. Unit costs were applied to individual service use to provide expenditure at an individual and population level for five settings of care. Population and expenditure volumes were compared for 32 possible combinations of service use. Results The total expenditure for the cohort (114,393 residents) for 2016/17 was £180.1 million. Almost half (47%) of total expenditure was incurred by community care, social care and mental health services, with hospital care and primary care incurring, respectively, 35% (£63.3 m) and 18% (£32.6 m). The two most common combinations in terms of total population volume and expenditure were primary and hospital care, and primary, hospital and community care. Primary care was present in all combinations. Mental health service use accounted for just over a tenth of all expenditure in the borough, but using mental health services substantially increased mean expenditure per patient. Conclusions A whole system perspective across all settings of care improves understanding of service user patterns. Setting-level analysis remains important, particularly for mental health users.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan House

SummaryUse of social media by people with mental health problems, and especially those who are prone to self-harm, has potential advantages and disadvantages. This poses a dilemma about how and by how much the form and content of social media sites should be regulated. Unfortunately, participation in the public debate about this dilemma has been restricted and high-profile discussion of necessary action has been focused almost entirely on how much suppression of content is justified. Professional bodies, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, should be doing much more than they are to shape how the debate is conducted.


2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 849-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Thornicroft ◽  
M. Tansella

BackgroundFor too long there have been heated debates between those who believe that mental health care should be largely or solely provided from hospitals and those who adhere to the view that community care should fully replace hospitals. The aim of this study was to propose a conceptual model relevant for mental health service development in low-, medium- and high-resource settings worldwide.MethodWe conducted a review of the relevant peer-reviewed evidence and a series of surveys including more than 170 individual experts with direct experience of mental health system change worldwide. We integrated data from these multiple sources to develop the balanced care model (BCM), framed in three sequential steps relevant to different resource settings.ResultsLow-resource settings need to focus on improving the recognition and treatment of people with mental illnesses in primary care. Medium-resource settings in addition can develop ‘general adult mental health services’, namely (i) out-patient clinics, (ii) community mental health teams (CMHTs), (iii) acute in-patient services, (iv) community residential care and (v) work/occupation. High-resource settings, in addition to primary care and general adult mental health services, can also provide specialized services in these same five categories.ConclusionsThe BCM refers both to a balance between hospital and community care and to a balance between all of the service components (e.g. clinical teams) that are present in any system, whether this is in low-, medium- or high-resource settings. The BCM therefore indicates that a comprehensive mental health system includes both community- and hospital-based components of care.


2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Lelliott

The level of public satisfaction with mental health services is low. This is evident in adverse media coverage and the Government's view that community care has failed. Some components of a comprehensive mental health service are in disrepair and others are missing altogether. Surveys of those who use services show that many are dissatisfied with the care they receive. One of the actions that services must take to improve their effectiveness, acceptability and public image is to understand better what people want from the services they use. Surveys of service users have identified what these issues are. It is now important that these factors are incorporated into measurement instruments that can be used in routine practice settings. This paper summarizes what service users have indicated that they want from services, lists the desirable attributes of instruments that might measure these factors, and gives brief descriptions of four instruments that meet some aspects of the specification.


2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 432-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Bridgett ◽  
Paul Polak

Home treatment as an alternative to acute adult in-patient care is part of the National Health Service's Plan for mental health services in the UK. As a form of crisis intervention, it benefits from an understanding of, and ways of working with, the social systems relevant to the patient in crisis. This article describes the social systems intervention process as an alternative to admission and also considers its application in achieving early in-patient discharge.


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