Health Management and Policy Alert

Always there for us: evaluating Project Future's work at Bruce Grove youth club

Centre for Mental Health - 

This report finds that reaching out to youth clubs can enable mental health services to support young people who they might otherwise not reach. It evaluates Project Future’s work at Bruce Grove Youth Club in Haringey, North London where psychologists worked for two days a week. They supported young men who went to the club with their mental health and wellbeing and provided training, advice and support to the youth workers there.

• Report
• More detail

The good childhood report 2022

The Children's Society -
This report aims to show the latest trends in children's well-being. This year’s report shows that around 1 in 16 children (6 per cent) aged 10 to 15 in the UK are unhappy with their lives, and almost 1 in 8 (12 per cent), an estimated 562,000 of 10-15 year olds, are unhappy with school. It finds that the current cost of living crisis is having a significant effect on families, with 85 per cent of parents and carers surveyed in 2022 saying they are concerned about how it will affect their families in the next year, especially as over a third of parents and carers reported they already struggled with costs of school trips and uniform over the last year.

• Report
• The Children's Society - publications

Barriers and opportunities: improving access to mental health support for refugees and people seeking asylum

British Red Cross -
This report explores access to and experience of mental health support for refugees and people seeking asylum in England. It finds a need for a person-centred, trauma-informed approach where the specific needs of the individual are considered and most appropriate mental health support is offered. It also details an opportunity to improve communication with refugees and people seeking asylum in the provision of mental health support including longer appointment times to overcome language barriers, preference for face-to-face appointments, written and translated communication and consistent access to professional interpreters.

• Report
• British Red Cross - publications

How are we doing? A coproduced approach to tracking young Black men’s experiences of community wellbeing and mental health programmes

Centre for Mental Health - 

There are few culturally relevant tools focusing on young Black men’s mental health outcomes. Using approaches that lack cultural sensitivity limit services’ ability to know whether they are working well, and can lead to mistrust and disengagement. Funded by Mind, Centre for Mental Health has designed a new, culturally informed approach to monitoring young Black men’s outcomes for accessing wellbeing support — Culturally appropriate evaluation for young Black men. It was coproduced with young Black men to identify what impact a service has on their mental health and wellbeing. Community wellbeing and mental health programmes are being asked to pilot the tool, to help determine its effectiveness.

• Report
• More detail

The impact of body image on mental and physical health

House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee - 

This report states that the government must speed up the introduction of a promised licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures to prevent vulnerable people being exploited. The report identifies a rise in body image dissatisfaction as the driver behind a new market that to date has remained largely unregulated.

• Report
• Press release

Heads up: rethinking mental health services for vulnerable young people

Commission on Young Lives - 

This report, co-authored with the Centre for Mental Health and the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition, looks at the growing crisis of mental health problems among children and young people in England. It puts forward ambitious and innovative proposals to redesign young people's mental health services, particularly for those young people at risk of harm. The recommendations include: a commitment from the next Prime Minister to fund an immediate £1bn children and young people's mental health wellbeing recovery programme; guaranteed mental health assessments for children and young people at points of vulnerability; and a national implementation programme to embed a whole school and college approach to mental health and wellbeing across all education settings in the country.

• Report
• Press release

Building the right support for people with a learning disability and autistic people action plan

NHS Providers -
On 15 July 2022 the government published its Building the right support for people with a learning disability and autistic people action plan. The plan brings together into one document key elements from existing reports, recommendations and announcements from across government and public services aimed at improving care and support for people with a learning disability and autistic people. This briefing summarises the key points from the action plan, with a particular focus on the key commitments, and sets out NHS Provider's views.

• Briefing
• NHS Providers - publications

Poverty, economic inequality and mental health

Centre for Mental Health - 

This briefing explores evidence about the links between poverty, economic inequality and mental health, showing that living in poverty increases people’s risk of mental health difficulties, and that more unequal societies have higher overall levels of mental ill health. The briefing also demonstrates that poverty and economic inequality intersect with structural racism to undermine the mental health of racialised and marginalised groups in society. The briefing calls for concerted and concrete actions to improve mental health by increasing the incomes and reducing the costs of the poorest people in society. These include increasing benefits and paying the Living Wage, help with housing and childcare costs for the least well-off, and improving access to vital services in the most deprived areas.

• Briefing
• More detail

National Audit of Care at the End of Life: mental health spotlight audit summary report, England and Wales (2021/22)

NHS Benchmarking Network -
This report finds that whilst thorough scrutiny of all deaths occurring in mental health services is demonstrated to be well embedded, policies and guidelines around end of life care delivery are not as well developed. It concludes that whilst working with dying patients is less common on mental health inpatient wards, there is an opportunity for mental health providers to give greater support to staff and give the appropriate training needed to deliver end of life care if necessary.

• Report
• NHS Benchmarking Network - news

National Clinical Audit of Psychosis: England national report for the Early Intervention in Psychosis Audit 2021/2022

Royal College of Psychiatrists - 

Based on data from 10,557 case-notes submitted by 54 trusts in England, this audit report presents national and organisation-level findings on services provided to people with first-episode psychosis (FEP). The report commends teams for maintaining early intervention in psychosis (EIP) service delivery at a high level in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It found that 66 per cent of teams had an increase in staff in the past year. The report also looked at the disparities in EIP care between different groups of people with FEP to highlight inequalities.

• Report
• More detail