25.10.16
Action needed to tackle mental health patient ‘unacceptable mortality gap’
Improving life expectancy for patients with severe mental illness should be a priority of NHS policy, and a national steering group should be established to address the issue, according to a joint report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC).
People with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have a 10-20 year shorter life expectancy than the general population, as well as higher rates of physical ill-health.
The report said that a national steering group should be formed to enable physical health issues for mentally ill patients to be addressed on a national level. This group should work closely with Royal Colleges and regulatory bodies.
Professor Dame Sue Bailey, chair of the AMRC, said: “Health professionals should have the same ambitions for the physical health of people with severe mental illness as for the general population.
“The ambition of this report is to provide a focused programme of actions that can be taken across the system, from training to leadership and best practice in care provision, to reduce preventable premature mortality in this vulnerable group.”
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, president of the RCP added that the recommendations in the report “takes us a step beyond what we already know - that physical illness is the biggest single cause of death in severe mental illness”.
“This is now a major priority for us, NHS England and anyone who cares about severe mental illness,” he said.
Furthermore, the report said NHS commissioners should require mental health providers to embed physical healthcare in their services, and providers should develop a physical health strategy for people with mental illness.
Earlier this year, the King’s Fund warned that treating mental and physical illness separately is no longer affordable.
Other recommendations from the AMRC included better use of IT to store patients’ clinical information, and ensuring that training for healthcare professionals includes the physical health risks for mentally ill people.
Janet Davies, Royal College of Nursing CEO, said: “People with severe mental illness have the same right to good physical health as anyone else, and everyone in health care has a duty to work towards this.
“The health service must get better at sharing good practice. The practical recommendations in this report are an important step towards closing the unacceptable mortality gap.”
Professor Maureen Baker, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: “This report drives home the need for more mental health services in the community, and for GPs and our teams to have better, easier and quicker access to these.”
She added that, as part of the GP Forward View, every GP practice will have access to a dedicated mental health therapist.
David Branford, English pharmacy board member at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said pharmacists could provide “targeted intervention” to help people with mental illness with issues such as smoking, weight management, addiction and medication.
Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England (PHE), added: “We welcome this important report, having ourselves recently published work showing that access to treatment for, and the quality of data on, people with severe mental illness varies considerably across the country. PHE will continue to work with partners to tackle these problems and deliver the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “We agree that providers of mental health services should also pay careful attention to the physical health needs of patients with severe mental illness. It makes sense to introduce physical health checks and to get treatment started while individuals are admitted to hospital or in other healthcare settings.”
She said the NHS had set a target of doubling the number of people with serious mental illness receiving physical health checks in the next two years.
(Image c. Dominic Lipinski from PA Wire)
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