Areas for Improvement

• However, although mental health services have undoubtedly improved, there are acknowledged areas for improvement.
• The SHAs, as part of the Darzi report, were asked to assess their own services and all recognised the need for improvements, mostly in the areas of maternal and neo-natal care, and in child and adolescent care.
• There remains the problem of poor communication within the hospital setting meaning that many people in Acute care fail to get the psychiatric care they need. We are confident though that the Darzi reforms will address this issue.
• Communication remains an issue between services. Police and mental health providers do not have clear lines of communication and too many people with mental health needs are finding themselves inadequately cared for in an inappropriate setting.
• A report by the Chief Nursing Officer showed that many patients continue to find wards a terrifying place to be owing to the threat of violence and poor hygiene standards.
• Despite the move towards involving other patients with the creation and implementation of care pathways many mental health service users report being ignored and not-involved in this process.
• As our APPG report shows stigma towards mental health remains a serious and challenging aspect of mental health care and more needs to be done to break down these barriers in society.

Mental Health over the last 10 years >
Successes >