Mental health green paper (A guide)

In this brief article, we will be discussing mental health green paper, the contents covered in the mental health green paper, the benefits of having the mental health green paper, and more information about mental health green paper.

What is the mental health green paper in the UK law?

The mental health green paper in the UK law is a draft legislation which is aiming to improve the mental health services for young people.

This kind of paper is making sure that early intervention and prevention is followed by mental health services for affected young people. 

The proposals in this kind of paper are the following

• making a new mental health workforce of community-based mental health support teams for young people
• encouraging every school and college to obligate a designated lead for mental health in young people
• directing a new 4-week waiting time for NHS children and young people’s mental health services to gain fast access to mental health services

The response to the mental health green paper by mental health charities and societies

This green paper does not focus too much on the encouragement of taking mental health services that are holistic in approach to young people which is also very important for these people.

There is also a fragmentation of the CAMHS or the child and adolescent mental health services was not indicated in this paper.

There are also some mental health services that were not given too much importance int his paper that might be needed in young people.

The green paper does not take notice about the concern of emergency departments taking mental health patients since there isn’t a proper organisation in these departments for these patients.

In this case, CYPMHS (children and young people’s mental health service) is therefore imperative according to some societies that are focusing on bringing mental health services to young people.

There is also the unacceptable amount of waiting time for patients who are in need of immediate mental health care and it can’t be met with this concern in waiting time.

Some charities and societies are proud that the government has recognized the need to grant access to early intervention and prevention for young people who have mental health complications which is the one of the major campaigns made by these mental health charities and societies.

This legislation has also allowed mental health charities and societies to create tremendous change on the mental health concerns that young people have in their lives and they are proud that the government has taken note of this health concern in young people.

As you can see, there are still other concerns that this legislation should address before making it into a Bill.

The following are other suggestions that mental health charities and societies are making:

• Invest in extra resources to support young people and parents to self-manage emotional distress and mental health complications in these affected young people
• Make childhood adversity and trauma a public health priority in the current society
• Enhance crisis care support for children and young people who are experiencing a mental health crisis in their time
• Introduce improved and long-term funding for CAMHS so that all children and young people can get the help and support that they need for their mental health states

New mental health support assisted by the mental health green paper

This green paper was formed in 2017 where the need to transform the mental health services for children and young people are needed in the current society.

This legislation was based on the responses of a survey that was answered by concerned departments and people who are worried about the mental health in young people and help try to improve services that can treat mental health and give them the encouragement to keep going when the road gets tough.

Some of these departments were considered about the education and the health of these young people.

The following are the commitments of this legislation that will help young people be treated appropriately for their mental health complication:

• Developing new Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs), jointly implemented with the Department for Education. These teams are obligated to give early intervention on some mental health and emotional wellbeing concerns such as mild to moderate anxiety and helping staff within a school or college setting to offer a whole-school model to mental health and wellbeing. These teams will move as a connection with local children and young people’s mental health services and be supervised by NHS staff as stated in the legislation
• Practising a four-week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services, establishing on the increase of NHS services already underway as stated in this legislation.
• NHS England and NHS Improvement is also supporting the Mental Health Services and Schools and Colleges Link Programme which will join together education and mental health services under Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to include joint working and guarantee long-term cooperation as stated int his legislation.

This proposed link program that was mentioned before is a £9.3m national initiative implemented by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and funded by the Department for Education, which will be administered over four years.

There will be schools and colleges who will be doing this program and this can be done by doing some workshops for people to have more information on how to take care of affected young people.

There will also be many areas in communities where these mental health services will be accessible to every young person who is affected by mental health complications in the community.

This implementation is part of the long-term plan of the NHS who is also working that there will be some positive changes to these mental health services when there are updates on how to take care of mentally ill young people more.

Recommendations needed to be discussed in the mental health green paper

The following are recommendations made by several mental health charities and societies about this kind of paper:

• Some mental health charities persuade the Government to be more ambitious in the roll-out of this kind of paper. By the Government’s own estimates of the current concern, a quarter of a million children and young people who could be helped by a Mental Health Support Team (MHST) will still be left behind in five years caused by the time it takes to roll out the proposals as reported. Children who are reported as younger than school-age will not have advantages until they reach school, despite having similar needs and fewer mental health services that are accessible which are in decline. Mental health charities and societies cannot afford to leave desperate children and their families to have mental health troubles alone any longer since this can affect the mental health complication that is currently faced by the child.
• Mental health charities and societies would ask the Government to put in place procedures to enhance the recruitment and maintenance of multi-professional teams such as child and adolescent psychiatrists to help with these kinds of services. The Green Paper’s impact assessment (pdf) states that in the short term at least, the reforms are likely to improve demand on CAMHS as more young people are able to avail of the mental health services they need as reported in recent reports. With the number of consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists decreasing by 6.9% in the last four years, more resources need to be invested in these kinds of services as well as adult mental health services to give the appropriate oversight and support to the newly formed MHSTs and to ensure the four-week waiting time target can be met by mental health professionals. As a sample first step, these kinds of psychiatrists, higher trainees and speciality doctors in these kinds of services should be on the national shortage occupation list as proposed to help young people who are currently going through recent mental health complications.
• There is a need to make sure Mental Health Support Teams are combined both within CAMHS and educational institutions and try out a model by which this kind of service would manage them as proposed by the administrators fo the plan. Pilots to try out this kind of service from the NHS leading MHSTs and holding resources for them should be introduced to mental health professionals who will be working with young people. This kind of plan should be done alongside other pilots in which groups of schools and local authorities lead MHSTs as proposed by these mental health professionals. As this kind of service in the NHS will give guidance or oversight and support to the MHSTs, they could lead them clinically and managerially as proposed by these kinds of professionals. This kind of situation would help prevent overlap, unwieldy management and fragmentation in this kind of service as the concern shared by mental health charities and societies. People can learn from models such as that in Oxford in which this kind of service and schools work closely together. Funding for CYP mental health needs to be protected to prevent these kinds of needs being spent on other goals that aren’t necessary for the main goal of this service for these affected young people. An analysis of a certain mental health society has shown 70 out of 209 CCGs spent less than planned on children and young people’s mental health and eating disorders in 2016-17 as reported in the statistics which is still a concerning number of the mental health care given to these young people. There are organisations getting funding also need to be held to account and give an accurate transparent record of spend to make sure the funding is spent as obligated in several mental health charities to help improve these mental health services and getting them accessible to affected young people. For instance, revious RCPsych analysis of CCGs’ kind of mental health service spend has shown inaccuracies in the way commissioners reported their spending in the Dashboard as reported by the recent accounts in this kind of psychological society.
  

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Conclusion 

In this brief article, we have discussed mental health green paper, the contents covered in the mental health green paper, the benefits of having the mental health green paper, and more information about mental health green paper.

If you have any questions about mental health green paper, please let us know and the team will gladly answer your queries.

FAQs: mental health green paper

Citations

NHS. New mental health support in schools and colleges and faster access to NHS care.

RCPCH. Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: green paper – consultation response.

RC Psych. Children and young people’s mental health Green Paper.

YoungMinds. Our View on the Government’s Green Paper.