scholarly journals Mental health care and the big IT

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyles R. Glover
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
National Health Service ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
National Health ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
British National Health

When I was at school the big IT everyone talked about, some explored avidly and others shunned nervously was sex. In psychiatry today, as in so many other fields IT is information technology. This article is a polemic. I believe IT (the new sort) is indispensable for modern mental health care. In the British National Health Service we have a window of opportunity to get IT right and if clinicians fail to act decisively and quickly, there isa risk that the chance will be lost.

Is the English National Health Service meeting the needs of mentally distressed Chinese women?

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Green ◽  
Hannah Bradby ◽  
Anita Chan ◽  
Maggy Lee ◽  
Kimmy Eldridge
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
National Health Service ◽  
Health Service ◽  
National Health ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Care Group

Objectives: To identify barriers to communication between health care workers and Chinese women living in England, a group who are known to use the National Health Service (NHS) less than other ethnic groups; to consider whether such barriers lead to inequitable access to NHS mental health treatment; and to determine the extent to which this results from institutional racism. Method: A purposive sample of 42 Chinese women living in South-East England aged 29-60 years derived from a primary care group, two secondary mental health service providers and three Chinese associations. Subjects had all consulted a general practitioner and had either experienced mental distress ( n = 24) and/or had used traditional Chinese medicine ( n = 25). Results: Communication with health care professionals was hindered by a lack of common language and an absence of shared concepts concerning the causes and manifestations of health and illness, particularly mental health. This lack of communication resulted in delayed diagnoses, misunderstood treatment regimens and deterred women from (re-)presenting to the NHS. Among our informants, these types of problem were more acute for those women who were most marginalised from English-language culture. Conclusions: Linguistic and conceptual problems explain Chinese women's relatively poor access to mental health services. The continuing failure to tackle systematically these communication problems through the routine provision of interpretation and advocacy services lays the health care system open to the charge of 'institutional racism'.

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