Abstract
This paper calls for the routine integration of mental health promotion and prevention into UK General Practice in order to reduce the burden of mental and physical disorders and the ensuing pressure on General Practice. The proposals & the resulting document (https://ethicscharity.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/rcgp_keymsg_150925_v5.pdf) arise from an expert ‘Think Tank’ convened by the London Journal of Primary Care, Educational Trust for Health Improvement through Cognitive Strategies (ETHICS Foundation) and the Royal College of General Practitioners. It makes 12 recommendations for General Practice: (1) Mental health promotion and prevention are too important to wait. (2) Work with your community to map risk factors, resources and assets. (3) Good health care, medicine and best practice are biopsychosocial rather than purely physical. (4) Integrate mental health promotion and prevention into your daily work. (5) Boost resilience in your community through approaches such as community development. (6) Identify people at increased risk of mental disorder for support and screening. (7) Support early intervention for people of all ages with signs of illness. (8) Maintain your biopsychosocial skills. (9) Ensure good communication, interdisciplinary team working and inter-sectoral working with other staff, teams and agencies. (10) Lead by example, taking action to promote the resilience of the general practice workforce. (11) Ensure mental health is appropriately included in the strategic agenda for your ‘cluster’ of General Practices, at the Clinical Commissioning Groups, and the Health and Wellbeing Board. (12) Be aware of national mental health strategies and localise them, including action to destigmatise mental illness within the context of community development.
Highlights
Good mental health is important for the educational achievement of children and their future prospects, for the physical health of the population, for the social capital of communities and for the economy
(11) Ensure mental health is appropriately included in the strategic agenda for your ‘cluster’ of General Practices, at the Clinical Commissioning Groups, and the Health and Wellbeing Board
Despite increased efforts to improve mental health treatment services, it remains the case that 10% of children [6] and 17.6% of adults [7] in the UK have a mental disorder at any one time
Summary
Good mental health is important for the educational achievement of children and their future prospects, for the physical health of the population, for the social capital (amount of trust and reciprocity) of communities and for the economy. The proposals in this paper arise from an expert‘Think Tank’ convened the by the London Journal of Primary Care, ETHICS (http://ethicsfoundation.org/about-ethics/) (Educational Trust for Health Improvement through Cognitive Strategies) and the Royal College of General Practitioners. The Think Tank included professionals from general practice, primary care, public health, psychiatry, community development and commissioning. Initial outputs can be downloaded from the ETHICS website (http://ethicsfoundation.org/2015/09/04/mental-health-promotion-saves-lives/).The recommendations presented here were launched at the Royal College of General Practitioners in October 2015. Core principles underpinning this work include the WHO definitions (http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story046/ en/) of health and mental health (http://www.who.int/ features/factfiles/mental_health/en/), the Public Health Framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/263658/2901502_ PHOF_Improving_Outcomes_PT1A_v1_1.pdf ) for health promotion and prevention, the need for parity (equality of time, energy, resources and commissioning expertise) between mental and physical health and the value of a biopsychosocial approach to health
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