Browse by Tags

People with mental health problems are experiencing less stigma and discrimination, but attitudes of health workers are not improving The Time to Change campaign seems to have made an encouraging impact on attitudes towards mental illness in England. According to independent evaluation of the campaign's first four years, people with mental health problems are experiencing less stigma and discrimination, are feeling more empowered and are enjoying more social contact. One group in society appears to be proving resistant to this positive influence, however. Extraordinarily, the evidence suggests...

Adults with autism should be supported to find and hold down a job, which would have innumerable benefits for their care The NHS needs to recognise the symptoms of autism in adults better, say new guidelines from Nice, the government's NHS watchdog. Because autism can affect people past childhood and there are variations in assessment criteria, it is a condition that can often be overlooked by care professionals – with severe consequences for those left undiagnosed. The new guidelines seek to improve this, identifying the most common, recognisable characteristics of autism and, in turn, emphasising...

As a new study reveals seven in 10 homeless people are discharged from hospital to the street, Homeless Link calls for the NHS to act Seven out of 10 homeless people who end up in hospital are discharged back onto the streets, according to our latest research published this week. Homeless clients are often discharged without their underlying health problems being addressed, damaging their health and costing the NHS money. All this could be avoided. It's well known that being homeless can harm your health, especially if you end up sleeping rough. Life on the streets can make you vulnerable to...

Debate at our first Public Health Dialogue focused on the evolving role of directors of public health, as well as commissioning, accountability and inequality Will directors of public health sink or swim in their new roles in local government? That was one of the key questions raised in the healthcare network's first Public Health Dialogue on Wednesday 14 March. Bringing together professionals from the NHS, local government and the third sector, attendees were keen to debate the upcoming challenges facing directors of public health, in particular exploring the transition to local authorities...

A Yorkshire and Humber trust is finding that half of its prescriptions of therapy can be delivered online Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber foundation trust has gone it alone in building an online mental health support and treatment service. The trust, which provides mental health and learning disability services, decided to develop its Talkingsense.org e-clinic facility in-house, following a pilot involving the trust, which abbreviates its name to RDash, North Lincolnshire council's digital inclusion unit and BT. Michelle Larkin, RDash's business development and marketing manager, says...

The director of innovation and design at the NHS National Innovation Centre talks about the prospects for IT in healthcare, the landscape for new ideas, and a report from Logica Lynne Maher can see the NHS entering a new phase in its development of IT. National programmes are becoming less of an issue, and there will be a stronger emphasis on new ideas coming from the ground up. As director of innovation and design at the NHS National Innovation Centre she is not an IT specialist but has a wide brief that includes technology; the institute's work has included projects on open source software...

Following sustained criticism of the National Programme for IT, the government is absorbing NHS computing into the state sector mainstream Amid the embarrassment and recrimination following the latest damning report into the English NHS's National Programme for IT (NPfIT), one outcome is certain. No longer will the NHS be able to set its own IT policy, distinct from the rest of the public sector. Even before Parliament's public accounts committee (PAC) reported on the dismal progress of care records systems in secondary care , the Cabinet Office had already taken the NHS under its wing...