Physical Health Challenges in Mental Health Practice e-Bulletin: Updates on the first year Tracey McKee, Dr Moira Connolly, Stephen McGinness, Dr Julie Langan-Martin, Dr Mairi Albiston, Dr Elvira Pearson, Dr Alexis McLaughlin, Andrew Walker, Audrey McCann, Dr Russell Hosie, Dr Jacqueline Monaghan, Tracey Robertson (all NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde), Dr Rabia Ellahi (NHS Education for Scotland/Medical and Dental Defence Union Scotland) and David Wright (ACUMEN).
Aims Mental Health Nurses
Escalating evidence of health inequality for people with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) indicates that their physical health needs must be considered and addressed as part of a person-centred package of care1. Their 15-20 year mortality gap has been described as “a failure of social policy, health promotion, illness prevention and care provision” 2. The Scottish Government’s 2020 Vision, seeks to redress this with its focus on; prevention, anticipatory care and supported self management, high standards of care, and evidence based approaches with learning from what works for patients.
Psychiatrists
Pharmacist
Service Users
In keeping with the 2020 Workforce Vision NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Mental Health Services developed a policy to assist mental health practitioners to assess for physical health care needs3. The policy implementation group recognised a need to provide a regular evidence informed update to all stakeholders to raise awareness of this topic and to facilitate the sharing and adoption of best practice.
Clinical Psychologist
Editorial Group
Occupational Therapist
Communications
Our aim was to engage and inform a broad spectrum of staff by producing four electronic bulletin issues during 2015; covering all types of evidence, not just published academic literature.
Librarian
Figure 1
Methods Knowledge Services and Communications were approached for support in delivering this electronic update and a multidisciplinary Editorial Group was formed to steer the project through its pilot year (see Figure 1).
Diagram showing staff groups represented on Editorial Group
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Expert colleagues wrote clinically relevant ‘practice points’ and successful board projects with service user feedback (where possible) were included. Local third sector partners also contributed with the aim of ‘shining a spotlight on’ the innovative work they were doing in the area of physical health.
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With each issue there was a cycle of continuous improvement with the editorial group responding to feedback and electronically derived usage statistics.
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A survey was carried out in February 2016 as part of the evaluation of the pilot year.
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200 Results By the end of the pilot year four issues had been emailed out to our growing multidisciplinary subscribers list (see Figure 2). Our evaluation survey asked if the bulletin has achieved its aim of “providing an evidence informed update on meeting the physical health challenges across mental health services”; 80% of question respondents said yes. We asked our subscribers what they liked best about the bulletin; responses highlighted the short, topical and easy read nature of the bulletin (see Figure 3).
Conclusions This bulletin would not have been possible without the multidisciplinary Editorial Group or the input of our many contributors; drawing on expertise from a range of colleagues has been essential to our success.
100 0 Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4 Issue 5 Figure 2 Showing increase in number of subscribers from Issue 1 to Issue 5
I think it’s all interesting. I like the lay out and content, especially the new/recommended articles.
I like the selection of articles and the fact that there is one bulletin with all this info cited.
Keeping a broad definition of ‘evidence’ allowed us to share examples of best practice both from our own organisation and third sector partners; this has been welcomed by our subscribers. As part of our strategy to be inclusive in reaching all stakeholders we have moved the bulletin archive from our intranet to our public website; this makes it freely accessible to our third sector collaborators including social work and service user groups. We have linked with HSCP representatives to garner their feedback and assist us with the future development of the bulletin from the perspective of integrated services.
Pertinent information being sent in an easy read format. A summary of each area with further information available should you wish this.
Easy to read. Informative – it helped me to meet one of my PDP objectives this year!
Bite sized and from outside of psychiatric press.
Ultimately we hope this work helps take the planned revisions for the Mental Health Services Physical Healthcare Policy to the tipping point at which a holistic approach to the multi-morbidity experienced by people with SMI becomes the norm. Figure 3 References 1. BMA Board of Science, Recognising the importance of physical health in mental health and intellectual disability: achieving parity of outcomes, British Medical Association, 2014. 2. Thronicroft, G. Physical health disparities and mental illness: the scandal of premature mortality, British Journal of Psychiatry, 2011, 441-442. 3. NHSGGC Mental Health Services, Physical Healthcare Policy, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, 2014. Acknowledgements:ACUMEN, Greater Glasgow Mental Health Network, Scottish Association for Mental Health, Addaction, Scottish Recovery Network.
Survey responses to “What do you like best about the bulletin?”
Further Information Contact: Tracey McKee, Subject Specialist Librarian, NHSGGC
[email protected] Read our Physical Healthcare Policy on NHSGGC Staffnet
