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National Service Framework for Mental Health: modern standards and service models
- Foreword by the Secretary of State
- Conclusion
- Executive Summary
- 1. The National Service Framework for Mental Health
- 2. National standards and service models
- 2.1 Standard one - Mental health promotion
- 2.2 Standards two and three: Primary care and access to services
- 2.3 Standards four and five: Effective services for people with severe mental illness
- 2.4 Standard six: Caring about carers
- 2.5 Standard seven: Preventing suicide
- 3. Local implementation
- 4 Ensuring progress
- 5 National support for local action
- 6. Appendices: Outcome indicators for severe mental illness, Glossary, References and Bibliography
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Foreword by the Secretary of State
Rt Hon Frank Dobson MP
At any one time one adult in six suffers from one or other form of mental illness. In other words mental illnesses are as common as asthma. They range from more common conditions such as deep depression to schizophrenia, which affects fewer than one person in a hundred. Mental illness is not well understood, it frightens people and all too often it carries a stigma
Despite its prevalence and importance mental illness hasn't had the attention it deserves. That's why the Government is determined to give it a much higher priority. That is why we decided that mental health should have the same priority as coronary heart disease in our programme of National Service Frameworks which will lay down models of treatment and care which people will be entitled to expect in every part of the country.
So this National Service Framework for Mental Health spells out national standards for mental health, what they aim to achieve, how they should be developed and delivered and how to measure performance in every part of the country. These standards are founded on a solid base of evidence, which has been examined and validated by the External Reference Group chaired by Professor Graham Thornicroft. I am very grateful to them for their thorough and professional work which should help raise standards, tackle inequalities and meet the special needs of women, men, and different ethnic groups.
This National Service Framework fleshes out the policies announced in our White Paper 'Modernising Mental Health Services'. It will be a guide to investment in mental health services including the extra £700 million which the Government is providing over this year and the next two. It will be backed up, in due course, by changes to bring the law on mental illness up to date to reflect modern treatments and care, following the root and branch review conducted by the independent expert group under Professor Genevra Richardson.
Most people who suffer from mental illnesses are vulnerable and present no threat to anyone but themselves. Many of these patients have not been getting the treatment and care they need partly because the system has found it so difficult to cope with the small minority of mentally ill people who are a nuisance or a danger to both themselves and others.
The Government is committed to do whatever is necessary to deliver a modern and dependable health service, fit for the new century. Mental health services and the professionals who provide them will get the attention and resources they deserve. This National Service Framework will set the standards and these standards will be met.
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