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Prioritising Mental Health Improvement
Meeting of Minds - NIMHE's Partnership Working with the Pharmaceutical Industry
NIMHE and the Pharmaceutical Industry are working together to support service providers, commissioners and researchers to improve the quality of mental health care and outcomes for people with mental health problems by promoting the effective implementation of mental health policy.
NIMHE recognises that this partnership may be a potential area of concern for some in the mental health community and has outlined the rationale for this on its website www.nimhe.org.uk
Key principles
* None of the work is product linked or promotional, rather it models partnership working on areas where collaboration can serve to improve the delivery of core tasks for NIMHE
* There is no influence either individually or collectively by companies on NIMHE policies and initiatives
* The process is transparent in that all companies are informed collectively about opportunities open for their support of NIMHEs work which can be conducted either with individual companies or companies working in collaboration
Key work areas
* Policy implementation
The NIMHE and Industry partnership are working to bridge the gap between national guidance and local implementation in the area of NICE guidance.
* Medicines management, concordance and choice
Medicines management and concordance form part of the National Service Framework and the issue of 'choice' in accessing health care is the subject of a consultation from the Department of Health, which includes mental health as a priority area.
* Bridging the gap between physical and mental health
The need to manage physical health and mental health in parallel is included in the new CMS contraction GP Practices. The partnership has supported work on guidance on the implementation of the mental health elements of the CMS contract being led by NIMHE's Primary Care Programme, including the development of advice for both users and practitioners.
* Promoting a multidisciplinary approach to holistic care
The level of understanding of psychotropic medication and particularly how it interacts with other elements of care by different...