A few months ago, two of our Connecting partners came along to one of our DG updates and spoke about their experiences of being part of the Connecting programme. One of the issues raised was that Connecting is usually arranged with one …
Mental health has never commanded the same public attention and media interest as physical health, the reasons for this we can debate at length. But this lack of profile means that we who work in the sector, and consequently those …
Several members of the Legislation and Policy Unit in the NHS Group recently went connecting at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM). SLAM provides the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK, has about 4800 …
It has now been a year since we prepared our first set of civil servants to go out on the frontline. As I look back over that year, not only do I have a lot of memories, but most of …
Connecting has been a fantastic opportunity to remind me why I joined the Department of Health, having recently come back after several years working in other parts of Government. It’s also given me a very useful snapshot of the reality …
From the outset, our aim at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust was to provide genuine, real life experiences of our mental health services to staff from the Department of Health (DH). So far, we have had the pleasure …
The fact that people with depression die up to 10 years earlier than the average life expectancy, and people with schizophrenia up to 15 years earlier, is shocking. But the reality of life for people suffering with severe mental health …
It was great to be involved with DH’s Connecting programme, helping civil servants gain experience in a school-based early intervention mental health service like ours. We have always supported the recommendations of the Francis Inquiry to improve quality of care …
I have now had two week-long connecting experiences - both offered a wealth of fascinating learning. North Essex Partnership University NHS Trust My time connecting at North Essex was spent in a low-secure residential unit, with the criminal justice team …
Five days connecting felt like five weeks – such was the pace and variety of experiences during my time at Guy’s and St Thomas’s. My contact with the service was essentially two parts of a care pathway – stretching from …