1. IPCC report concerning
the use of police custody as a “place of safety” under the Mental
Health Act welcomed
2. Lectures by Dr Pat
Bracken and Professor Sir Michael Rutter at 15 Belgrave
Square
3. Choice and Mental
Health: a new workstream within the College and a first
event
4. Friends of the College
Archive (FOCA)
5. NICE is recruiting new
members to independent advisory committees on the use of health
technologies
6. Provision of Foundation
Training in Postgraduate Medical Deaneries
7. Commissioners join the
Care Quality Commission
8. Health Quality
Improvement Partnership (HQIP)
9. Prisons charity joins
jails contracts bid
10. Mental Health Today Magazine:
Exclusive offer: 25% discount for members of the College
11. What’s new?
1. IPCC report concerning the use of police custody as a “place
of safety” under the Mental Health Act welcomed
The College welcomed the Independent
Police Complaints Commission’s (IPCC) report,
published 9th September, which examines the role of the police in
relation to the use of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act
1983.
This report highlights the number of individuals who are taken
to a police station as a place of safety. The College agrees that
such an environment is poorly suited to managing vulnerable people
who have medical problems or are at risk of harming themselves, and
may also have the effect of criminalising them.
The College established a multi-agency group to develop a new
set of standards on the use of Section 136 which included all
relevant professional organisations and monitoring agencies,
including the IPCC.
Dr Michele
Hampson, chair of the group, said: “This research highlights the
need to improve practice in relation to Section 136. We do not
currently have reliable data on the number of people who are
detained in this way. We also want to see a single,
nationally-agreed standard form introduced. Only then can we begin
to improve standards of care for this vulnerable group of
individuals”.
Dr Hampson highlighted the urgent need for better staffing of
Section 136 facilities. “Although the Department of Health released
£130 million for the development of Section 136 assessment
facilities in mental health units in 2006, no funding was allocated
for staff. Anecdotally, we have heard of new units which are unable
to open for lack of staff, and others that expect the police to
remain until the assessment has been completed.”
Many of the IPCC’s recommendations relate to recommendations
made in the new standards which are to be published by the College
on 29 September 2008. Further details of the new College report
will be included in the next enewsletter.
2. Lectures by Dr Pat Bracken and Professor Sir Michael Rutter
at 15 Belgrave Square
Tuesday, 28th October 2008: “Mental Health Revolution”
by Dr Pat Bracken
Dr Bracken is consultant psychiatrist and Clinical Director of
Mental Health Services in West Cork.
“Psychiatry, with its focus on mental illness, is essentially a
medicine of the mind. But, unlike livers, kidneys and brains, the
mind is not something we can see or feel. It is less tangible and
even resists easy definition. As a result, a medicine of the mind
needs to be qualitatively different to a medicine focused on bodily
tissues.
I will argue in favour of a revolution in how we understand
mental illness. I will suggest that we foreground the so-called
non-specific, non-technical aspects of our work and make these our
primary concern. This is not an anti-science or even
anti-technology argument, but rather an attempt to think about what
a genuine medicine of the mind might start to look like. “
Dr Bracken believes that this represents a positive challenge to
the discipline, one that will help us to clarify what aspects of
what we do are similar to the rest of medicine and what aspects are
very different. He will seek to map out some of the implications of
this revolution in terms of how we see ourselves as a profession.
He will suggest that it has particular implications for our
relationship with the emerging ‘user-movement’.
Tuesday, 4th November 2008: Professionalism and
Psychiatry: Challenges and Concerns by Professor Sir Michael
Rutter
Professor Sir Michael Rutter is Professor of Developmental
Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College,
London. He has been a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley
Hospital since 1966, and was Professor of Child Psychiatry at the
Institute of Psychiatry from 1973 to 1998.
Sir Michael set up the Medical Research Council Child Psychiatry
Research Unit in 1984 and the Social, Genetic and Developmental
Psychiatry Research Centre 10 years later, being honorary director
of both until October 1998. His research has included the genetics
of autism, antisocial behaviour, and study of both school and
family influences on children’s behaviour; he also has a special
interest in the interplay between genetic and psychosocial risk
factors. He led a major study into the effect of early severe
deprivation on Romanian orphans adopted into Britain.
Sir Michael was Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust from
1999 to 2004 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987.
He was a Founding Fellow of the Academia Europaea and the Academy
of Medical Sciences, of which he is now clinical vice
president.
Places are strictly limited, so to reserve your seat at these
lectures, please email Nicola Boyce at nboyce@rcpsych.ac.uk as soon
as possible.
3. Choice and
Mental Health: a new workstream within the College and a first
event
Earlier this year the Central Executive Committee approved a
workstream to examine issues around, and formulate a College
position on choice in mental health with a working group
chaired by Professor George Ikkos, College Treasurer. The
working Group is holding a conference will be held in Liverpool on
22nd January 2009 entitled "Supporting Choice in Mental Health -
Dilemmas and Possibilities".
The conference will examine the dilemmas and possibilities in
extending choice in mental health services and the opportunities
and risks for psychiatrists working to extend choice. This is
a key event for psychiatrists who wish to have a say in influencing
policy on choice and for psychiatrists who wish to be better
informed on the issues. Speakers come from within
and outside the College, and service users and carers will
participate throughout the day.
Please click
here to access the programme and booking
form.
4. Friends of the College Archive (FOCA)
The archivist (Mwatsera Maunze) and the honorary archivist (Dr
Fiona Subotsky) are proposing to form a group -"The Friends of the
College Archive".
Aims
- To support the College in the preservation, promotion and use
of its archival heritage.
- To promote interest in the History of the College, and of
British and Irish Psychiatry.
Membership
- Open to College members and other interested persons with a
College member's support on payment of the current
subscription.
- Donors to the Adopt a Book scheme to be offered free inaugural
(first year) membership.
Proposed Activities
- At least one meeting per year at the College, usually in
connection with a display or presentation.
- A history session at the annual meeting.
- Annual visit/outing to a site of historical interest such as an
old asylum.
- Encouragement of history projects relating to psychiatry.
- Three times a year Newsletter by post.
Expression of Interest
If you would like to be kept informed, please write to FOCA, The
Honorary Archivist, Royal College of Psychiatrists, 17 Belgrave
Square, London SW1X 8PG, or email fmaunze@rcpysch.ac.uk with your
name, address and email.
5. NICE is recruiting new members to independent advisory
committees on the use of health technologies
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
is recruiting new members to join its three independent advisory
Appraisal Committees. The Appraisal Committees consider and
interpret evidence on the clinical and cost effectiveness of health
technologies and formulates recommendations on their use.
Members of all Committees are drawn from the NHS, healthcare
professionals, patients and carers, and the academic world.
Committee members are not appointed to act as representatives of
a particular organisation. They will be expected to apply the
experience and judgement from their individual backgrounds to the
topics considered by the Committee, and in doing so actively
contribute to improving the quality and consistency of care
provided by the NHS. They will be helping the Institute take some
of the most difficult decisions in public life.
NICE currently has vacancies for:
- Consultant Physician
- Clinical Pharmacologist
- Health Economist
- NHS Management
- Consultant Surgeon
- Psychiatrist
- Professions Allied to Medicine
- Nurse
Time commitment and conditions: Committee members attend eleven
day-long committee meetings per year as well as an annual Away day.
Appraisal Committee meetings are held at the NICE offices either in
central London or Manchester, and dates are fixed and made
available to Committee members up to a year in advance. Committee
membership is unpaid although expenses, including overnight
accommodation, are reimbursed. The period of Committee membership
is for three years in the first instance.
To access the information and application pack
click here. Completed applications should be
returned by Wednesday 8 October 2008 to kim.turner@nice.org.uk or
by post to: Kim Turner, Project Manager, Centre for Health
Technology Evaluation, NICE, Mid-City Place, 71 High Holborn,
London WC1V 6NA
6. Provision of Foundation Training in Postgraduate Medical
Deaneries
The GMC and PMETB are looking for visitors to assess the
provision of Foundation Training in postgraduate medical
deaneries.
If you have experience of delivering the Foundation Programme in
your deanery (for example, as an Educational Supervisor for a
Foundation doctor), some experience of quality assurance and/or
quality management systems, and have a background in general
practice, psychiatry or public health, we would like to from
you.
For further information on the role and the application process,
please contact Kate Gregory at kgregory@gmc-uk.org 02071895109 or
Jennifer Barron at jbarron@gmc-uk.org 02071895397.
www.gmc-uk.org
7. Commissioners join the Care Quality Commission
The first three Commissioners have been appointed to the Shadow
Care Quality Commission, with effect from 1st September.
The new Commissioners are:
- Professor Deirdre Kelly, Professor of Paediatric Hepatology,
Birmingham Children's Hospital.
- Lord Patel of Bradford OBE (Kamlesh Patel), Chairman, Mental
Health Act Commission.
- Dame Jo Williams, Chief Executive, Royal Mencap Society.
Barbara Young, Shadow Chair of the Care Quality Commission,
welcomed the appointments.
"I am very pleased to be joined by Commissioners who bring a
depth and breadth of experience across the new Commission's roles.
I welcomed the commitment in our founding Act, the Health and
Social Care Act 2008, to ensure that health, social care and mental
health backgrounds were well represented at Commissioner level.
We are now aiming to recruit a further three Commissioners who
will bring user interests to the heart of the Care Quality
Commission as well as strengthening our financial and risk
governance and providing clinical outcome or health or regulatory
policy strength at Commission level."
8. Health Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP)
The 2007 White Paper “Trust, Assurance and Safety” called for
clinical audit to be revitalised. In response, in April 2008 the
Department of Health appointed the Healthcare Quality Improvement
Partnership (HQIP) to manage the National Clinical Audit and
Patient Outcomes Programme and support local clinical audit
activity.
HQIP is led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal
Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and the Long-Term Conditions
Alliance and its purpose is to promote better healthcare by
providing support and advice to those responsible for managing
quality improvement work.
HQIP has three immediate priorities, initially focussed around
clinical audit but, over time, extending to other areas of quality
improvement:
- to manage and develop the National Clinical Audit and Patient
Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP)
- to support and enable clinical audit staff on a local
level
- to promote clinical audit as the engine that drives quality
improvement.
www.hqip.org.uk/
9. Prisons charity joins jails contracts bid
A penal reform pressure group has launched a surprise bid to run
two new prisons. Nacro, a charity which attempts to cut crime by
finding practical work for offenders, has formed a consortium to
win Government contracts for jails in Merseyside and London.
It joined forces with private security firm G4S, a drugs charity
and a construction company in its bid to run 600-bed Maghull and
Belmarsh West prisons. Nacro has previously been sceptical of some
private sector involvement in prison management.
But the charity's chief executive, Paul Cavadino, said: "The
best way of ensuring that they are being run properly is to be
involved in planning this from the start. If you are involved in
the planning of the regime, it makes it much more likely that a
prison will be providing high-quality resettlement and
rehabilitation.
Nacro had previously claimed the plans for “Titan” jails would
damage efforts to take criminals away from a life of crime and
exacerbate mental health problems in jails.
Mr Straw said that he understood fears that "Titan" jails could
be nothing more than warehouses for inmates. He said he would
consider the plans "very carefully" as the Government's
consultation period drew to a close. "There was never ever a plan
for there to be a single large jail with a single regime within its
walls," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "The plan was and
is for there to be a number of units within a large campus."
Applications to run the prisons will close in October 2008, and
the Government will announce who has won the contracts next
year.
10. Mental Health Today Magazine: Exclusive offer: 25% discount
for members of the College
Mental Health Today magazine is the monthly,
multidisciplinary magazine for all those working in or with
statutory, voluntary and independent mental health services.
Published ten times a year, it promotes diversity of best practice
across the health and social care sectors and keeps readers
up-to-date in policy and practice.
You can subscribe by calling Pavilion on 0870 890 1080 and quote
‘MHTMAG25%OFF’.
11. What’s new?