The Mental Health Foundation's policy work aims to ensure that the right kind of services are available at the right time in the right places, and that GPs and other staff have the knowledge and skills to be able to help people experiencing mental health difficulties.
However mental health is not always well served within the primary care agenda, and opportunities to improve primary mental health care have not been fully grasped by the government and NHS.
In 2006, the Mental Health Foundation co-sponsored a discussion on primary care mental health. As a result of this discussion, 6 key areas were identified which could improve the care currently being provided for people with all types of mental health problems. These are:
Practice Based Commissioning (PBC) for mental health
age and mental health
physical and mental health
primary care workforce
health promotion and community involvement
choice in primary care mental health
The ways in which these areas could contribute to a better person-centred primary care service for people experiencing mental health problems are explored in a report called Primary Concerns.
In 2007, we are continuing to develop work relating to primary care. This will include Practice Based Commissioning and Mental Health and Access to Psychological Therapies, following on from our We Need to Talk campaign.
We continue our work on exercise referral schemes, following our campaign Exercise and Depression, with a 2-year project supporting the practical implementation of these schemes.
We want you to have your say on policy work including our work on primary care. By providing your contact details, we will be able to:
inform you of which policy work subjects we are concentrating on
invite you to feed in your opinions and experiences to help inform our policy work
build up a database of people who are interested in contributing their views on policy and mental health
Complete the 'Have your say' online form
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