On Tuesday 6 May 2014 South East Coast Strategic Clinical Network for Mental Health, Dementia and Neurological Conditions and NHS England will host a conference at Sofitel Gatwick Airport to discuss ways to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

You can download the conference programme here and the delegate pack here (this document is no longer available here but can be found on the National Archives website).

The event is free to attend, but places are limited. To register please go to valuingmentalhealth.eventbrite.co.uk

Join the debate on twitter @NHSEnglandSouth #valuinghealth #parityofesteem

Objectives of the event

• To bring together patients, the public, healthcare professionals, voluntary organisations and other partners in order to rethink the way we address mental health problems in the region, to encourage integrated working in the delivery of mental health services, which should be based around an understanding of the underlying causation and the needs of patients and their carers.
• To embed the need to achieve parity of esteem between mental health services and those to traditionally designed to focus on “physical” conditions amongst delegates so that they can collectively contribute to achieving this goal.
• To embed the need to treat individuals in a more holistic way amongst delegates so they can apply this to their work.
• To engage a wide audience of healthcare professionals, patients and the public, voluntary organisations and other key partners in order to help generate ideas for the development of two to five year strategies for improving mental health which will ensure the consistent delivery of the highest quality care for patients across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
• To achieve this by using the event to reach agreement on what the main challenges are to achieving parity of esteem for mental health and generating ideas about how these challenges can be addressed.
• This will include the opportunity for the local NHS and other partners to share and learn from best practice and innovation in the delivery of mental health services.