The National Institute for Mental Health in England

Citation

(2002), "The National Institute for Mental Health in England", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2002.06215aab.009

The National Institute for Mental Health in England

The National Institute for Mental Health in England

The National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE), which was launched in July 2001, is to undertake a range of initiatives to implement the National Service Framework for Mental Health, raise the profile of mental health and improve services.

The first six areas of work to be undertaken by NIMHE are:

1. 1.

   Establishment of a mental health research network (MHRN) as a standing programme of NIMHE. MHRN will be the research arm of NIMHE and will be managed by a’number of leading academic centres. It will work closely with NIMHE's other structures particularly regional centres.

2. 2.

   Two research projects: the funding of the first trial of assertive outreach in the UK and an examination of workload issues for mental health professionals, starting initially with psychiatrists and social workers but potentially moving on to other professional groups.

3. 3.

   Commissioning of work to draw together existing good practice in service user evaluation and publication of tools and systems for service user focused monitoring.

4. 4.

   Collaboration with the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health to develop a National Training and Development Programme for Assertive Outreach and Crisis Resolution Teams. This will involve training for team members, team leadership’development and a flexible development programme for local psychiatrists.

5. 5.

   Production of a mental health promotion toolkit for primary care to help discharge the responsibility more effectively.

6. 6.

   Development of a national consensus on values for mental health. NIMHE will be making contact with individuals and organisations (professional and non-professional) to assist in this important task. The work will be completed over the next 12 months and the outcome presented at a national consensus conference in the autumn of 2002.