Pulling together- an opportunity for action

Abstract

The Sainsbury Centre report on the future roles and training of mental health care staff `Pulling Together’ was published in June, just one month after Labour’ s landslide victory. The report highlights the mismatch between current training arrangements and current and future service needs. It calls for the definition of core competencies for mental health workers to be established across all specialisms. Furthermore it links this with a recommendation that occupational standards be developed for each professional group. The review calls for specific action from each profession within achieving a correct balance between specialism and generalism, developing joint and shared programmes and a focus on managerial skills and community based working. There is also a call for a national initiative to raise the awareness of mental health in primary care, for more attention to be paid to the development of staff in in-patient settings and finally to respond to the training needs of staff moving from inpatient to community settings. We hardly need reminding that, while these recommendations were derived from a wideranging process of consultation and research, the real lessons have been learned in literally dozens of cases of failed community care. So often, and I speak as one who has given expert witness evidence at several homicide enquiries, the failures are often not those of resourcing, but of poor co-ordination and the