Here’s a post to draw attention to the RCN‘s newly published Report on Mental Health Services in the UK. This looks to be the latest document from Frontline First, a campaign revealing the effects of funding cuts on NHS care and nursing.
Working with the charity Rethink Mental Illness, and drawing on publicly available data, the RCN shows how (since 2010) the number of staffed mental health hospital beds across all four countries of the UK has reduced. The number of nurses working in NHS mental health services has also fallen, those remaining being revealed as an ageing group. Year on year, an increasing proportion is shown to be over the age of 50.
Here’s a chart showing reductions in the mental health nursing workforce, which I’ve extracted from page 16 of the report:
And, right at the front of the document, I see a clear case for investment contained in these recommendations which I reproduce word-for-word:
Follow @benhannigan1) Governments must ensure there is equal
access to mental health services and that
the right treatment is available for people
when they need it.2) Governments and NHS providers must
ensure that the commitment to parity of
esteem is directly reflected in the funding,
commissioning of services, workforce
planning, and patient outcomes.3) Local commissioners and health boards
must make available enough local beds
to meet demand.4) The principle of least restriction must
be embedded across all mental health
services. Detention under mental health
legislation should always be based on
clinical opinion and never be a result
of local failures to provide appropriate
care. Due to the significant increase in
detentions under the Mental Health Act
there should be a national objective set
to reduce detention rates in England.5) There must be a consistent shift across
the UK from inpatient acute care to
community-based services which
recognises that prevention and early
intervention results in better outcomes,
reduces the pressure on acute services,
and reduces the overall cost to the NHS
in the long term.6) Urgent action must be taken to address
the workforce shortages. Resources must
be committed to training and recruiting
enough mental health nurses who are able
to deliver specialist care in the changing
health and social care landscape.7) NHS providers must invest in the current
mental health nursing workforce.
Band 6, 7 and 8 mental health nurses
should be developed to become advance
practitioners to deliver effective
recovery-led care in mental health
services.8) There must be a sustainable and
long-term workforce planning strategy
which acknowledges the current
challenges facing the mental health
nursing workforce.
Ben Hannigan's blog 
Reblogged this on MHNAUK and commented:
Ben Hannigan draws attention to and nicely sums up the RCN’s recent report on mental health services in his blog. There are clearly big pressures on mental health services and challenges on the horizon in terms of evidence for developing services and of course nurse education. Parity of esteem may be an ideal but it is ringing as a hollow rhetoric for many and could even be used as a trojan horse to deliver generic (that is adult only) nursing. It is important that mental health nurses are aware of the direction of travel here and ensure that they have a say in debates on the future provision of mental health care.