Depression

Mental Health Nursing,  Nov 2005  

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Up to one-fifth of people who have depression in England need help their GP cannot give, according to an estimate published by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.

The Neglected Majority, a web site paper by Alan Cohen and John Hague, calls for a new type of service to meet the needs of this group.

In an average primary care trust (PCT), the paper says, some 22,000 working age adults have a mental health condition in any one week. Most of them have depression or anxiety. Specialist mental health services cater for the 500 or so with severe mental health conditions like schizophrenia. Yet there is likely to be at least a further 1,200 with depression or anxiety for whom usual care from their general practitioner is not enough.

Alan Cohen, director of primary care at SCMH, said: 'Lord Layard recently described mental health as "Britain's biggest social problem" and called for 10,000 new therapists to offer cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to people with depression and anxiety. Intermediate care offers a practical way of delivering those extra talking therapies while also helping people with their day-today needs such as work and housing.

'Intermediate care works. Our pilot project in Ipswich is already helping people who would otherwise have been neglected or been referred wrongly to specialist services. We will soon publish a guide to setting up an intermediate care team. But we also need commitment from government to support intermediate care and encourage the necessary investment by PCTs.'

The Neglected Majority web site paper is available to download free of charge from www.scmh.org.uk.The accompanying guide book for PCTs is available to purchase on 020 7827 8352.

Copyright Community Psychiatric Nurses Association Nov 2005
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