Mental healthcare in the 21st Century

Mental healthcare in the 21st Century
In England, the first National Service Framework developed by the Department
of Health was for the mental health needs of working age adults (Department of
Health, 1999). Scotland and Wales have also produced policy frameworks (Scottish Executive, 2001; Welsh Assembly, 2002). These and subsequent implementation guidance set out a common set of principles and values that underpin modern mental healthcare. These are relevant to this report:
1. Those providing care should have a sense of therapeutic optimism. The goal of care should be to promote “recovery”6 for people whose mental health problems cause significant disability.
2. Services should promote social inclusion and work actively to counter the stigma and discrimination that people with mental health problems face from society, including in the workplace.
3. The care package should encompass the range of health, social and behavioural issues that affect people with mental health problems. To achieve this, services must work across the interfaces between agencies including healthcare, social care, housing and employment.
4. Treatment and care should be evidence-based and draw on the growing number of national clinical practice guidelines.
5. People should be active agents in their care and be encouraged to express
preferences and to exercise choice. This carries with it the assumption that
people with mental health problems have responsibilities as well as rights.
6. The healthcare system has a wider responsibility to promote mental health
as well as to treat mental illness. This includes influencing the formulation and
delivery of social and economic policies including those relating to education,
training and employment.