MENTAL HEALTH

New Horizons: a shared vision for mental health (7th December 2009)
New Horizons is a cross-government programme of action with the twin aims to:

• improve the mental health and well-being of the population
• improve the quality and accessibility of services for people with poor mental health.

New Horizons sets out an intention across a wide range of agencies to move towards a society where people understand that their mental well-being is as important as their physical health if they are to live their lives to the full. It describes some of the factors that affect well-being and some everyday strategies for preserving and boosting it. It also sets out the benefits, including economic benefits, of doing so.
Guidance

Working our way to better mental health: a framework for action (7th December 2009)
The Government has launched the first ever national mental health and employment strategy.

The framework is designed to:

• Improve well-being at work for everyone, and
• Deliver significantly better employment results for people with mental health conditions, supporting them into work, helping them to stay in work and assisting them to return to work more quickly after sickness absences.

Framework

Realising ambitions: Better employment support for people with a mental health condition (7th December 2009)
This report sets out the reviewers’ vision for change to ensure the Government can better help more people with mental health conditions who are workless into sustained employment.

It sets out a number of recommendations for Government. These fall in to three broad groups:

• increasing capacity and dispelling myths within existing structures so they are better able to meet the needs of people with a mental health condition
• “model of more support”: implementing Individual Placement and Support (IPS) in a Great Britain context
• establishing effective systems for monitoring outcomes and driving change.

Report

Work, Recovery and Inclusion: Employment support for people in contact with secondary mental health services (7th December 2009)
Work, Recovery and Inclusion is a new government delivery strategy that sets out a series of actions that will help meet the aspirations of people in contact with secondary mental health services who want to work. It is deliberately challenging and aspirational and aims to bring about significant changes in outcomes.

The strategy looks to a future where people who are in contact with secondary mental health services are helped to get jobs, where they are equally valued for their contributions to the workplace, and where having a mental health condition is not seen as a barrier to work.
Strategy

Mental health clinical costing standards 2009/10 (4th December 2009)
Best practice guidance for organisations using and implementing Patient Level Costing and Information Systems (PLICS) in a mental health setting.
Guidance

Revision of Preventing Suicide: A toolkit for mental health services (25th November 2009)
The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has launched a revision of "Preventing Suicide: A toolkit for mental health service". The toolkit was originally published in 2003 and has been amended to reflect recent policy changes and has had input from key stakeholders, service users, carers and experts.
Toolkit

At a glance 18: Personalisation briefing: implications for community mental health services (November 2009)
This briefing, from Social Care Institute for Excellence, examines the implications of the personalisation agenda for practitioners and managers in community mental health services.
Briefing (Web Page)
Briefing (PDF)