Clinicians don’t feel they have enough training on health inequalities and would like more as part of their medical education, a report by the Royal College of Physicians has found. Of the clinicians’ surveyed 67 per cent of respondents had not received teaching or training in health inequalities within a training programme or as part of their degree and only 26 per cent felt confident in their ability to reduce the impact of health inequalities in their medical practice.
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The state of the UK rental market
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.
Digital Mental Health bulletin available
The latest Digital Mental Health bulletin, produced by Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, has been published.
If you are unable to access any of the articles in it please contact academic.library@lscft.nhs.uk.
Better housing needed for better 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.
Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper published
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.
Charities acknowledged for outstanding contributions to health and wellbeing
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 ‘bitesize guide’ for local systems to support people with LD published
NHS England has produced a ‘bitesize guide‘ to ‘supporting people with a learning disability and people with autism to live happier, healthier, longer lives.
Serenity integrated mentoring schemes must stop, NHS England says
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
Racism root cause of inequalities, report finds
Racism is the cause of health inequity, from birth through to adulthood and into later life, according to a report by the Race Equality Foundation. Researchers looked at Understanding Society data which found that racism is a key driver of ethnic inequalities in health, both directly and indirectly. It has an impact in childhood – with children from ethnic backgrounds being born at a lower birthweight and not hitting developmental milestones, to life-limiting long term illness, and mental illness in adulthood.
Increased risk of domestic violence during and after pregnancy for people with schizophrenia, study finds
Pregnant and postpartum patients with schizophrenia are three times more likely to experience interpersonal (domestic) violence, compared with those without schizophrenia, a study carried out by the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto has found.
In a population-based cohort study of almost two million participants, 3.1 per cent of patients with schizophrenia had an emergency department visit for interpersonal violence during pregnancy or the first postpartum year, compared with 0.4 per cent of those without schizophrenia.