Month: March 2023

This series looking at the current state of the UK rental market will contain stories familiar to anyone renting or looking for somewhere to rent in the UK BBC Radio 4 – Rental Health.

A report by the Healthier Housing Partnership (an independent partnership of academics, housing, environmental health and regeneration practitioners and housing and health researchers) has stressed the need for housing to be an essential part of future strategies to improve health and for making better use of resources to achieve better health outcomes.

A White Paper on the government’s proposals to help more disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work has been published. It pledges to invest in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions, ensure people can access the right support at the right time and have a better overall experience when applying for and receiving health and disability benefits reform the benefits system for the future so it focuses on what people can do rather than on what they cannot.

Ten charities including one that operates in Lancashire have won a 2023 GSK IMPACT Awards. One of the ten was Red Rose Recovery, based in Preston and across East Lancashire, which runs recovery systems and creates opportunities for people affected by substance misuse, mental health and offending behaviours. The ten organisations will receive a £40,000 donation, plus two places on a free training and development programme. The overall winner will be announced at the GSK IMPACT Awards Ceremony on 18 May

2023 GSK IMPACT Award winners | The King’s Fund (kingsfund.org.uk)

NHS England National Clinical Director for Mental Health sets out NHS England Professor Tim Kendall has published a position letter stating that serenity integrated mentoring (SIM) or similar models must no longer be used in NHS mental health services.  More specifically , it states, the following three elements must be eradicated from mental health services –

• Police involvement in the delivery of therapeutic interventions in planned, non-emergency, community mental health care (this is not the same as saying all joint work with the police must stop).
• The use of sanctions (criminal or otherwise), withholding care and otherwise punitive approaches, as clarified in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance.
• Discriminatory practices and attitudes towards patients who express self harm behaviours, suicidality and/or those who are deemed ‘high intensity users’.
• Indeed, we will be working with experts by experience, clinicians and policing colleagues to agree a National Partnership Agreement that sets out principles for joint working with police.
• Police may come into contact with people who have engaged in criminalised behaviour while carrying out their statutory obligations. This must not be conflated with active and routine involvement of police in mental health services.
• It is clear the employment or secondment or otherwise embedding of police officers within CMHTs as part of routine appointments is not appropriate.

Professor Kendall states: “this is not the same as saying joint working with the police must stop – joint working is critical…It is clear the employment or secondment or otherwise embedding of police officers within CMHTs as part of routine appointments is not appropriate.”

It is thought 22 trusts had implemented the SIM model in their services.

NHS England » NHS England position on serenity integrated mentoring and similar models