A man who spent 25 years using a variety of mental health services co-ordinated the biggest UK gathering of people in secure care to get views on how to improve care. Ian Callaghan, who now works for Rethink Mental Illness, led a session which used voting pads to ask the 120-strong service user audience important […]

More than 20,000 people have given their views on the top priorities for reshaping mental health services as part of a drive to develop a five year national NHS strategy for people of all ages. Better access to high quality services, a wider choice of treatments, more focus on prevention, more funding and less stigma […]

NHS England has distributed £30m of funding to improve eating disorder services aiming to achieve 95 per cent of patients being seen within four weeks or one week for urgent cases by 2020. The funding is the first stage of a new programme to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing and will […]

Frontline workers today heard the latest from the Mental Health Taskforce. Around 350 delegates to this year’s National Recovery and Outcomes Conference were addressed by the taskforce’s chair, Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, and Jacquie Dyer, the taskforce’s vice-chair. Paul and Jacquie explained the Taskforce’s aim is to create a five-year national strategy for […]

The first ever survey seeking the views of children and young people on the health services they receive has been published today. Children and young people aged eight to 15 years have been asked to give their views as part of the survey conducted by the Care Quality Commission. Children aged nought to seven years […]

NHS England has launched a new practical guide to help ensure the right people with the right skills are recruited into the right inpatient mental health settings. The Mental Health Staffing Framework, which focuses on inpatient care, was commissioned as part of the NHS England’s ‘Compassion in Practice programme’. It was developed by an independent […]

The recently established Mental Health Taskforce has received an astonishing response to its call for the views of service users, their families and professionals who work in mental health. As he talks at the NHS Confederation annual conference in Liverpool today, Paul Farmer, the independent chair of the mental health taskforce and Chief Executive of […]

More than 600 people now visit their GP instead of the hospital for regular physical and mental health checks thanks to a successful London scheme saving the NHS thousands. Across Newham CCG’s 61 surgeries four teams Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPNs) are on stand-by to see patients with stable severe mental illnesses who have opted into […]

Thousands of pregnant women have confronted mental health issues before they become more serious thanks to a thriving perinatal mental health service in Devon. Since it began five years ago the ten-strong Devon and Torbay Perinatal Health Team has identified, supported or signposted thousands of women who needed mental health support. Now, all of the […]

Half of the country is now covered by a new service to make sure people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities or other vulnerabilities such as debt or homelessness are supported in police custody and the courts. Sixteen new ‘Liaison and Diversion’ (L&D) teams are now up and running, bringing the total to 26 schemes […]