Mental Health Policy and Practice
Interagency Working in Health and Social Care
Edited by Jon Glasby
Aimed at students and practitioners, this series provides an introduction to interagency working across the health and social care spectrum, bringing together an appreciation of the policy background with a focus on contemporary themes. The books span a wide range of health and social care services and the impact that these have on peoples lives, as well as offering insightful accounts of the issues facing professionals in a fast-changing organisational landscape.
Exploring how services and sectors interact and could change further, and the evidence for what works, the series is designed to frame debate as well as promote positive ways of interdisciplinary working.
Published titles
Baggott: Partnerships for Public Health and Wellbeing: Policy and Practice
Glasby/Tew: Mental Health Policy and Practice 3rd edition
French/Swain: Working with Disabled People in Policy and Practice
Kellett: Childrens Perspectives on Integrated Services: Every Child Matters in Policy and Practice
Williams: Learning Disability Policy and Practice: Changing Lives?
Mental Health Policy and Practice |
3rd edition
Jon Glasby and Jerry Tew
Helen Lester and Jon Glasby 2006; Helen Lester and Jon Glasby; 2010; Jon Glasby and Jerry Tew 2015
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2006
Second edition 2010
Third edition 2015
Published by
PALGRAVE
Palgrave in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martins Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave is a global imprint of the above companies and is represented throughout the world.
Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 9781137025944
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Cambrian Typesetters, Camberley, Surrey
This book is dedicated to Helen Lester, a wonderful friend, colleague, researcher and GP. Helen was co-author of the first two editions of this book, before she tragically died, as preparations for a third edition were under way. One of the last things Helen said to us was to make us promise that we would produce this third edition and we hope that her passion for the role that research can play in improving services and hence peoples lives shines through our attempt to honour her wishes.
| List of Boxes, Figures and Tables |
Boxes
Figures
Tables
The publishers and authors acknowledge the following for kind permission to reproduce material in this book:
Carers Trust for );
Paul Hoggett for his permission to reproduce Mental Health Needs in Prison, from Mental Health Care and the Criminal Justice System (2009).
This book contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
In this chapter we discuss:
- The importance of partnership between health and social care.
- What we mean by mental health.
- The impact of mental illness.
- Different ways of thinking about mental illness.
- The incidence and prevalence of mental illness.
This revised and updated book is designed as an introduction to mental health policy and practice in the United Kingdom (UK) for students as well as for qualified practitioners, their managers and policy makers. That a third edition is needed so rapidly reflects the rate of change in mental health policy and practice across the four countries of the UK, with an increased degree of diversity as devolved administrations have had the opportunity to set their own policy directions. Our focus is on policy and practice relating to a range of mental health difficulties including both more common difficulties (such as anxiety or depression) and those that may be seen as more serious and disabling (such as to psychosis) but generally excluding neuro-degenerative conditions such as dementia which have tended to be dealt with somewhat separately in terms of policy and service provision. We will also consider the emphasis on the promotion of mental health and mental well-being that has become more prominent in mental health policy over recent years.
While mental health has acquired greater policy prominence over time, and a range of new service models and initiatives have been put in place, much remains to do in terms of:
- Developing better primary care-led and community-based models of service provision.
- Continuing to improve specialist mental health services and promoting a more personalised, recovery-oriented approach.
- Reducing stigma and promoting inclusion.
- Balancing concerns about risk and safety with increasing expectations around service user choice, control and self-management.
- Moving away from a focus on the needs of people in crisis to promote positive mental health for all.
It is these issues (although with some significant differences in emphasis), that are setting the context and agenda for policy development across the countries of the UK. However, in all UK countries, after a period of substantial growth in funding between 2000 and 2010, any desire to improve mental health services has now to be envisioned within a challenging financial context in which substantial savings are being required within the National Health Service (NHS) and, often to an even greater extent, within local authority social care services.
In seeking to understand the directions of (and contradictions within) current policy, we also aim to provide some historical perspective exploring how thinking and practice has continued to evolve over time, and what may have been the more or less obvious drivers for such developments.
Now published as part of a broader series on interagency working for different user groups, this book does not just focus on a particular professional or organisational perspective but on a wider whole systems approach. However, within this whole system, our focus is primarily on specialist mental health and social care services although we recognise that people with mental health problems are also affected by (and concerned with) the everyday services and supports that are so essential to all of us (for example, housing, employment, income, education, family, neighbourhoods, transport, leisure and community safety) and we try to reflect this wherever possible.
