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News from
other organisations and the
NHS
Health and Social Care Bill
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Royal College of GPs - Results of
latest survey
More than 70% of respondents to a
poll carried out by the Royal College of General Practitioners
say they strongly agree or agree that the Health and Social Care
Bill should be withdrawn.
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Senior doctors to lobby Lords on
Health and Social Care Bill
All the Medical Royal Colleges called on Peers to make
substantial changes to the Health and Social Care Bill.
In a briefing paper delivered to all members of the Upper
House, the Academy argues that too much emphasis is being placed on
competition and choice at the expense of integrating patient care
and may widen rather than reduce health inequalities. The Academy
also calls for clarification on the public health proposals and
commitments to be honoured regarding doctors’ education and
training.
To celebrate World Mental Health Day
(10 October 2011)
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United Nations: greater resources
for mental disorders needed
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world to allocate more
resources for the treatment of mental disorders, saying that too
little funding was devoted to mental health despite the
debilitating nature of the illnesses and the fact they can be
prevented or treated effectively.
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Northern Ireland: Framework for
mental health launched
Health Minister Edwin Poots launched his Department’s
Service Framework for Mental Health and Wellbeing. This
framework takes forward the values and principles of the Bamford
Review. It sets out clearly the key standards in services that
mental health patients and clients can expect and that service
commissioners and providers must seek to deliver.
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Mental Health Hero’ Awards
The founders of Mental Healthy launched the
UK’s first Mental Health Hero Awards to recognise the
unsung heroes of mental health. Teaming up with mental health
charities SANE, The Mental Health Foundation, The Centre for Mental
Health, and Emergence, these awards are to give credit and
recognition to those who have contributed to the field of mental
health. Mental Healthy invites you to send in applications.
Closing date: 10 December 2011.
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Troops feel mental illness
stigma
Combat Stress which looks
after thousands of veterans, including many psychologically scarred
by action in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched the next phase of its
The Enemy Within fundraising drive. Iraq war veteran Neil Blower,
who has written a novel drawing on his own experiences tracing a
squaddie's battle with post-traumatic stress disorder said the UK
was "sitting on a timebomb" of mental health issues resulting from
recent conflicts.
Grey Pride: campaign to appoint a Minister
for Older People: petition
Despite making up 40% of the voting public, there is currently
no minister dedicated to representing the views of older people - a
fully-fledged Minister for Older People who would hold the
government to account and ensure the needs of older people are
understood and represented. Grey Pride provides all the
tools needed for people to get involved with the campaign.
4Children: Postnatal depression: the
experience of families
Suffering in Silence looks into the experiences of
women and families with postnatal depression. It finds that
as many as 35,000 women have the condition each year, with serious
repercussions for themselves and their families. Half of all women
suffering from postnatal depression do not seek professional
treatment, and more are not getting the right treatment quickly
enough.
Department of Health
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£20 million to knock down mental
health stigma
The Government is joining forces with Comic Relief to help
tackle
mental health stigma, with funding of up to £20 million for
Time to Change, the leading
stigma and anti-discrimination campaign, run by Mind and Rethink
Mental Illness. This is the first time that the long-standing
campaign has received Government funding.
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Payment by Results Draft:
2012-2013
The DoH has published
Payment by Results Draft 2012-13 Mental Health Guidance.
This draft guidance is intended for all NHS organisations providing
mental health services in preparation for 2012-13 and commissioners
of mental health services.
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Summary Care Record (SCR) to
benefit patients with long term conditions
The
SCR is a secure, electronic patient record which is currently
being introduced in England to help patients who have difficulties
communicating their needs. David Congdon from Mencap said: “For patients with a learning
disability, the potential benefit of the SCR would be if they are
able to add key information about their needs that they want
clinicians to know at the point of treatment. This could be
important information about how they communicate, for example, how
they show they are in pain. The record could also provide contact
details for their carer."
National Statistics: two new
publications
Drug chart standards to reduce
hospital prescribing errors
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, along with the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal College of Nursing, have
produced a set of standards for the design of hospital
in-patient prescription charts aimed to help eliminate
prescribing errors.
Home Office - Body Confidence teaching
pack
A new
teaching pack to help children understand how images in the
media are altered and the impact these have on self-esteem was
launched by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. The teaching
pack marks an important contribution to the government’s ongoing
Body Confidence campaign.
More than 17,000 children separated from
their mother through imprisonment
A new report from the Howard League for Penal Reform,
Voice of the
Child, has shown that at least 17,000 children are
separated from their mother every year causing long term emotional,
social, material and psychological damage, with little to no
dedicated support.
NHS
excludes 60,000 adults with ADHD in Scotland.
This is one of the key findings of a survey of all NHS Boards in
Scotland by ‘Addressing The
Balance’, a charity set up to promote understanding of and to
campaign for treatment of ADHD. In October 2011, the lack of NHS
provision for adult ADHD sufferers was considered for the first
time in the Scottish Parliament when Addressing The Balance
formally presented its findings in the form of a petition to
Holyrood calling on the Scottish Government to catch up with
England.
Broadmoor man makes legal history
The
mental health tribunal for Albert Haines, who has been
diagnosed with a personality disorder, offered a rare glimpse into
the usually hidden world of the hospital. Members of the press were
given full access to the proceedings, which despite the sensitive
mental health issues being discussed, were reported for the first
time.
Personal budgets:
making them work for service users
A
report on personal budgets was published by the NHS
Confederation's Mental Health Network. The report draws together
evidence from polling, focus groups and in-depth interviews to give
the views of service users, clinicians and 40 local NHS and social
care leaders across the country. The Network sets out five tests
that the NHS and Government should meet in order to make personal
budgets work for service users.
Stephen Fry
takes over as President of mental health charity Mind
In September, Stephen Fry officially took up
his new role as
President of the mental health charity Mind.
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