13 June 2008
Local government needs to reassert itself and play a more active role in mental health care, senior social care managers have said.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said mental health should not be viewed simply as an NHS preserve, when social care services could play a major role in helping people to become well.
Richard Webb, co-chair of Adass's mental health, drug and alcohol policy network, said it was time to end the 'social care retreat' on mental health. 'You can get the best of combining not just NHS and social care but increasingly our links to local government and the wider community. 'We're saying there's a really important social care dimension to people's mental health, both in terms of services and in terms of values and beliefs and a commitment to recovery,' Webb told Public Finance.
Adass's discussion paper, Mental health into the mainstream, published on June 6, sets out eight priorities for mental health and wellbeing. These are accompanied by some practical steps, such as how to encourage more employers to provide mentally healthy workplaces.
Webb said: 'Local government has a lot to offer in terms of creating a mentally healthy society.
'Place-shaping is about more than physical fabric, it's also about the emotional wellbeing of society and therefore we're calling on the government to replace the National Service Framework with a cross-government strategy that looks at mental wellbeing in its broadest sense.'
New guidance for health and social care commissioners also emerged this week, from the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. About time calls for radical changes to day and vocational services to help mental health patients build the lives they want.
The guide says that too many day and vocational services offer sheltered and segregated support to people with mental health problems rather than giving them support to get jobs and pursue their interests.
PFjun2008
