Thousands of people in mental health crisis have been able to access the urgent care they need quickly and directly thanks to a flagship £1million crisis helpline in the North East. People with mental health issues, who might previously have attended A&E, have been able to use a single telephone number set up by Northumberland, […]

The Chairman of the Mental Health Taskforce told the Health and Innovation Expo 2015 conference “we are at the start of a new era for mental health.” As he launched the Mental Health Taskforce Engagement Report at the event in Manchester, Paul Farmer, CEO of charity Mind and Taskforce Chair, said he was delighted to […]

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 […]