Mental health care: nurses make demands for the next government

The proposals form the final – and final – chapter of the Manifesto by Nurses, which Nursing Times has been building since October in anticipation of the next general election, the date now set for July 4.

This final chapter outlines ideas from nursing professionals on how the political party taking over can protect Britain’s mental health and wellbeing and future-proof mental health care.

A prominent theme among the responses was the need to respect mental health nursing as a distinct specialty with different educational needs than other nursing specialties, amid concerns that courses had become too general.

More broadly, nurses called for government policies that tackle the root causes of some mental health problems, such as poverty, and improve support for people with the most serious mental health problems.

There was also a need for work to increase public awareness of mental health. More radical ideas included training psychology graduates to provide therapy to certain patients to tackle waiting lists.

Now that the final chapter has been completed, Nursing Times will bring all your ideas together into a final manifesto that we will deliver to the main parties contesting the elections.

Your mental health needs at a glance:

• More mental health care in the community
• More mental health nurses in primary care
• Improvements in mental health education
• Action to tackle the causes of poor mental health
• Routine mental health checks
• Public awareness campaigns about mental health
• Recognizing the uniqueness of mental health care

What you said:

Georgina Callard

Georgina Callard, Primary Care Mental Health Nurse, Queen’s Nurse and Lead Professional Nurse, Northamptonshire

Having mental health nurses in every GP practice was the change Ms Callard wanted to see.

She said having more frontline mental health nurses would support preventive work by helping people tackle their mental health problems at an earlier stage.

“The demand is certainly there! I do this and have reduced the number of referrals to secondary care, so it is working,” said Ms Callard.

Alison Ruth Cross, Specialist Health Visitor for Perinatal and Child Mental Health, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

“More money needs to be spent on mental health care, but in the right way. Involve the people who work in mental health and ask them what is needed,” said Cross.

Alison Ruth Cross

She advocated that in the future there will be ‘no postcode lottery’ for good mental health care.

Furthermore, she added: “More needs to be done to continue to break the stigma around mental health and the right people need to be in place to do this.”

Sally Davies and Yvonne Yelland, academics in Northamptonshire who both have over 30 years’ experience in mental health

The pair’s joint call to action included a call for “fundamentally caring public policies” that ensured everyone had access to enough money to live on, a place to live and a decent job.

They also wanted the government to help health professionals educate the public about mental health and for more support for social prescribing through general practice.

In addition, they said steps should be taken to “ensure equality of esteem” between adult care and mental health nursing – and to better recognize that the two fields are different and require different skills.

Erica Safar-Omoigui

Erica Safar-Omoigui, Mental Health Doctor, Plymouth

A “public information campaign” on mental health was something Ms Safar-Omoigui believed would make a positive difference.

Additionally, she wanted to see a “fairer career path” so that all mental health nurses have the opportunity to progress into senior positions.

Stephanie Luff, Clinical Nurse Specialist, London

Stephanie Luff

Ms Luff wanted the Government to take further action to tackle the causes of poor mental health.

“We cannot solve mental health problems in reverse. They need to be tackled at source – more social housing, more funding for schools, reasonable support for job seekers etc,” she said.

Dan Warrender, Mental Health Lecturer, Abertay University, Dundee

Dan Warrender

“The future of mental health care in Britain can be supported by developing well-trained mental health nurses,” Mr Warrender said.

He warned that educational standards are currently too general and fail to “articulate a specific vision of what it means to be a mental health nurse”.

“A new government should prioritize highlighting the unique nature of mental health care and improving supporting training for the workforce,” he added.

Jacqueline Parker, Liaison and Diversion Nurse, North East London NHS Foundation Trust

Her demands included making mental health nursing a more ‘distinctive profession’, legally protecting the title of ‘nurse’, bringing back the nursing bursary, ensuring that all student nurses receive a mental health placement complete health care and that action is taken to support population resilience. to “avoid labeling normal life problems as illnesses”

Ed Freshwater, Mental Health Nurse and Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Leicester

Ed Zoetwater

Mr Freshwater urged the next government to “wake up” to the “unbearable experience” of people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“For years – but especially since the pandemic – politicians, along with the public and the media, have been talking about mental illness as if it were just about mild to moderate anxiety, stress or a bad mood,” he said.

He claimed that people with serious mental illness had experienced “relentless government attacks” in the form of reduced benefits, deteriorating housing and fewer employment options – and called on the next government to change this.

Rachel Cadden

Rachel Cadden, Newly Registered Mental Health Nurse, East Midlands

Her call was to introduce routine mental health checks for people at “risk ages and stages of life”, and to invest in mental health drop-in centres.

Betty Scholes, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing, University of the West of Scotland

“I would like recognition of the differences between mental wellbeing and mental health problems,” Ms Scholes said.

She said there should be non-medicalised pathways available for people to achieve mental wellbeing, as well as better investment in services for people with serious mental health conditions.

She also raised concerns that, due to the emphasis on “physical health and technical skills”, the current nursing curriculum was inadequate to prepare nurses to work with patients who were acutely mentally unwell.

“Greater recognition of nurses’ work in mental health and investment in both pre-registration preparation as a specialty and the ongoing development of nurses… could redress this current imbalance,” Ms Scholes said.

Helen Bennett, nurse and student mental health nurse, Cygnet Health Care, Yorkshire

Helen Bennett

Ms Bennett said more mental health services were needed in the community.

She suggested that the government could tackle waiting lists by making better use of people with degrees in psychology, who could be trained to provide therapy to people with conditions such as personality disorders.

Michelle Orrell, Mental Health Nurse, North West England

She urged the next government to “stop privatizing and broadcasting [the] from the most difficult mental health cases to private care”.

Michelle Orrell

On mental health, Ms Orrell said improvements were needed in areas such as pay, workload, training, wellbeing support and workplace culture.

Patricia Todd, retired mental health nurse, South East England

Patricia Todd

“The shortage of mental health nurses is a major factor in the provision of good mental health care,” Ms Todd said.

She warned that these shortages were often leaving newly registered mental health nurses “left to work, without the help and support they need” – and she called for this to change.

Mick McKeown, Professor of Mental Health Nursing, North West England

Providing his insights for the next government, Professor McKeown said: “Mental health nursing can be one of the most rewarding jobs, with successful outcomes often dependent on the skilled use of self within relational care processes.

“However, budget cuts and staff shortages are putting this at risk and services are becoming increasingly restrictive and coercive.”

He warned that going forward, a balance is needed to ensure nurses still have enough time to provide direct and humane care between record keeping and managing the use of technologies such as CCTV, body-worn cameras and remote monitoring systems.

Brodie Andrew Paterson, Consultant Nurse Psychotherapist, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Scotland

Brodie Andrew Paterson

“The mental health system in Britain is in crisis,” Dr Paterson warned.

“Recruitment for courses is declining. Practitioners are under enormous pressure, and they emerge from increasingly generic training programs that are inadequately equipped with the knowledge, skills and values ​​to practice empathetically, safely and effectively.”

He called for a “rewrite” of current mental health nursing education standards, as well as workforce strategies that gave nurses sufficient time to provide “relational practice” and reduce levels of burnout, compassion fatigue and moral injury.

Download a PDF of the mental health chapter below.