Plenary speakers

Mental Health Nursing,  May/Jun 2002  

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Ruth Lesirge, the Mental Health Nursing journal speaker and the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation talked to delegates on evidence basedpractice and the work of the Foundation in this field.

The voluntary sector, she said, was both diverse and powerful, although the proportion of people giving to charities was decreasing. The figure in 1993 was 81 per cent - this had fallen to 66 per cent by 1998. And, she added, fewer young people were donating to charitable causes.

The Mental Health Foundation is a policy, research and practice development organisation but does not provide services. The research and practice development elements of the Foundation's work, Ms Lesirge continued, span all age groups and also incorporate learning disabilities in as well as mental illness. The Foundation of People with Learning Disabilities is part of the Mental Health Foundation. The Foundation works in the context that the largest proportion of the voluntary sector is care and support services and that the voluntary sector's links with social care providers and stronger than with healthcare providers.

The work of the Foundation was to help those with mental illness in the short and medium terms. This could include promoting well-being and challenging stigma. This work is particularly important, she continued, as the causes of mental health problems are still in dispute. Social, biological or psychological reasons were all held up as the main reasons why problems may develop, although these may not be mutually exclusive and the cause may be due to an interaction of factors.

Kevin Gournay

The health service had insufficient numbers for assertive community treatment and family intervention Kevin Gournay, professor of nurse education at the Institute of Psychiatry warned delegates.

Not enough people had had appropriate training and salaries were poor to recruit and retain he added. He compared the salary of G and H grade nurses to a tube driver on 27,000 per annum and asked where all the nurse consultants were: "We were all led to believe there would be hundreds paid up to L46,000 a year."

He believed that university teachers of nurses had a poor understanding of NHS issues and CPNs faced big changes to their role - due to changes in legal powers, nurse prescription and more generic case management.

"Mental health is priority in rhetorical terms only for the government. We need to become more politically organised - not just for ourselves but for our patients."

The government's promise of a thousand extra primary care workers would now, it appeared only get funding in 2004. He added: "We are deluged with paperwork from the government and we often miss the things that go through. We must not let these things slip by."

Mick Fuller

Mick Fuller, the lead NHS officer for Amicus/MSF in Scotland, stepped into the breach left by John Lloyd, head of education for Amicus-AEEU. He was unashamed about plugging the Scottish quality of life.

Introducing himself with `now for something completely different' he told delegates that by the time he had finished speaking they would all want to leave home and jobs immediately and work for the NHS in Scotland!

Much of-what Mr Fuller had to say echoed the words of community care minister, Malcolm Chisholm. He outlined the fundamental changes within the NHS in Scotland, based around a `partnership model' of working. "If you work in Scotland," Mr Fuller said, "you work within a collaborative, cooperative approach."

A human resource strategy for the NHS, was first put forward in 1998. Since then the idea of `staff governance' (rather like clinical or financial governance) had developed and continued to evolve. The elements of staff governance, within this `partnership model', were numerous.

Mr Fuller outlined the importance of appropriate and adequate training for staff, which was well received by the delegation. It was only when staff were appropriately trained, he continued, that they could be fully involved in a decision making process which allowed them to be treated fairly and consistently.

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