Adult Community Mental Health Teams Research Articles

Developing early intervention services in the NHS: a survey to guide workforce and training needs

Aims and MethodWe conducted a questionnaire study to establish the incidence, specialist staff availability, treatment provision and socio-demographic profile of patients with first-episode psychosis referred to all adult and child and adolescent community mental health teams in south and west London.ResultsAll 39 teams completed the questionnaire, identifying 295 cases of first-episode psychosis (annual incidence 21/100 000/year) referred in the year 2000. Teams manage to engage most patients with first-episode psychosis. A total of 73% of cases of first-episode psychosis were on some form of Care Programme Approach. However, many teams did not have adequately trained staff to provide psychosocial interventions. Even where such staff were available, care was focused mainly on monitoring medication and risk assessment, with only half the teams providing psycho-educational programmes and only a quarter offering individual cognitive–behavioural therapy to those with first-episode psychosis.Clinical ImplicationsEstablishing early intervention services nationwide will require significant new resources, including specialist trained staff, which could prove difficult to provide in inner-city areas. Rather than a single, uniform service model, several models of early intervention services based on locally determined need might be more realistic and appropriate, and also allow research into their relative efficacy.

A multidisciplinary handbook of child and adolescent mental health for front-line professionals Nisha Dogra A multidisciplinary handbook of child and adolescent mental health for front-line professionals , Andrew Parkin , Fiona Gale and ClayFrake JessicaKingsley £14.95(paperback);176pps18530292971853029297

This book sets itself the aim of providing an introduction to child mental health and of raising key issues in the field, and it largely succeeds in this. The title further defines the target audience, which we can assume included primary care workers and perhaps nurses and others in (adult) community mental health teams, whose main occupation is not child and adolescent mental health, but who will need some knowledge of the area in the course of their work with families.

‘The Reading model’: an integrated psychotherapy service

This article describes the principles and structure, staffing and training of an integrated psychotherapy service for the people of West Berkshire and South Oxfordshire (Reading, Henley, Wokingham, Newbury and Didcot) a population of 530 000.The service is integrated internally as a joint outpatient and therapeutic community service that can provide psychodynamic psychotherapy across a wide range of length, intensity and styles. Externally it is integrated with the general adult psychiatry service, referrers, social services and community mental health teams.

The role of clinical psychology in the allocation process of an adult community mental health team

The role of clinical psychology in the allocation process of an adult community mental health team