Monday, August 01, 2005

Securing better mental health for older adults (UK) A document from the UK Department of Health that "marks the start of a new initiative to combine forces across mental health and older people’s services to ensure that older people with mental illness do not miss out on the improved services that younger adults or those without mental illness have seen. It provides a vision for how all mainstream health and social care services, with the support of specialist services, should work together to secure better mental health for older adults, and describes how the Department of Health is aiming to help deliver this." The link above leads to an HTML version of the document, which is also available in PDF format.  
  

 Thursday, July 28, 2005

Mental Health Foundation calls service-user defined outcomes symposium (UK) Medical News Today story - "In response to the Healthcare Commission's publication of the final set of star ratings today, the Foundation has called a symposium on mental health service user-defined performance measures. The event in November will provide a think-tank opportunity to examine meaningful measures and how to embed them in the future of health service inspections."  
  

 Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Mind Highlights Trustees' Mental Health Problems (UK) Red Nova story - "Mind, the mental health charity, has issued a statement declaring that one in five of its trustees have been compulsorily detained under the Mental Health Act. The charity's first audit of council management revealed that 15 of its 24 trustees have had mental health problems in the past year, whereas 18 have directly experienced mental distress and can call on recent experience. A spokesman said the charity decided to make the figures public 'for reasons of transparency and accountability'."  
  

 Thursday, July 14, 2005

Some Concessions On Mental Health Bill, But Serious Concerns Not Addressed, Says Alliance, UK  Medical News Today story - "The UK Government's response to the Joint Scrutiny Committee on the draft Mental Health Bill offers some hope but there is a long way to go before Government plans can be made into a workable mental health bill, the Mental Health Alliance said today. Speaking on the day the Government published its response, Alliance chairman Paul Farmer said: ' After seven years and thousands of hours of consultation on this crucial legislation, some of the basic changes required are now being recognised, but we're a long way from workable legislation.' " See also Next Steps For Mental Health Bill at the same source and Anger over new mental health bill (Guardian).  
  

 Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Ministers reject concerns over mental health law (UK) Guardian story - "The government today vowed to press ahead with its controversial overhaul of mental health legislation, against the advice of MPs and peers. The Department of Health and the Home Office said the parliamentary committee that scrutinised the legislation was wrong to conclude that it would erode civil liberties. The departments today accused the joint committee on the draft mental health bill of missing the point about the proposed measures to widely extend compulsory treatment and detain people suffering from mental illnesses or personality disorders." See also Mental health committee 'misses the point' (ePolitix.com) and Rethink - Mental Health Bill concessions fail to meet concerns (Rethink press release at Politics.co.uk).  
  

 Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Support so key to mental health (UK) BBC story - "Government proposals to give doctors powers to compel mentally ill patients to undergo treatment in the community have provoked widespread concern. This week ministers will respond to the criticisms. The BBC went to Nottingham to find out what people involved in the mental health care system think..."  
  

 Sunday, July 10, 2005

Evaluating Mental Health Services for Older People (UK) A review at BlackEnterprise.com of Evaluating Mental Health Services for Older People by Jenny Finch (Radcliffe Publishing) - "...The book provides a useful overview of the development of services in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia, along with an insight into the evaluation of these services, before making an international comparison. The detail reflects the author's depth of experience. The various approaches adopted in developing standards and methodologies for evaluation within the context of the former Commission for Health Improvement and with the Health Advisory Service (HAS) in the late 1990s are discussed."