Mental health services need more talking therapy and care after hours

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7571.722-d

BMJ 2006;333:722 (7 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7571.722-d

News extra

Mental health services need more talking therapy and care after hours

London Toby Reynolds

England’s community mental health services should widen patients’ access to talking therapies and information and provide better out of hours care, the Healthcare Commission said after a national review.

A survey conducted by the commission found that users were mostly satisfied with the service, with 77% rating their care as good, very good, or excellent and more than 80% saying that their psychiatrist and community psychiatric nurse had treated them with respect and dignity.

But less than half said they had a telephone number of someone from their local mental health service who could be contacted out of hours.

“The majority of people who suffer from mental illness receive their treatment in their own community, not in hospital,” said Anna Walker, chief executive of the regulatory body. “For care in the community to work for the mentally ill, more access is needed to talking therapies and out . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?