Month: August 2023

Funding for public mental health helped address Covid 19 mental health challenges

A report by the Centre for Mental Health commissioned by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) to evaluate the Better Mental Health Fund nationally has found how investment in public mental health can reap the biggest benefits for local communities.

The evaluation finds that the Fund enabled local councils to support a wide range of activities to promote mental health, covering a spectrum of preventive and support-based interventions and projects for the general population, by tailoring their use of the Fund to the needs of their local communities.

Funding for public mental health from the OHID’s Better Mental Health Fund was given to local authorities in 40 of the most disadvantaged areas of England that experience higher rates of mental ill health and used to run 314 projects to address mental health challenges arising from the Covid 19 pandemic.

CentreforMH_MadeInCommunities_BMHF_0.pdf (centreformentalhealth.org.uk)

Updated NICE standards on alcohol-use disorders

NICE has updated its quality standard on alcohol-use disorders: diagnosis and management. It focuses on five key areas: the use of validated alcohol questionnaires, community support networks and self-help groups, triage assessment in specialist alcohol services, acute alcohol withdrawal and interventions to prevent relapse after unplanned withdrawal from alcohol in hospital.

Overview | Alcohol-use disorders: diagnosis and management | Quality standards | NICE

Online Cochrane Library of evidence to close

The online Cochrane Library of evidence Cochrane Reviews | Cochrane Library that also monitors the impact of Cochrane Reviews is to close at the end of March 2024, following the end of NIHR (National Institute of Health and Care Research) funding.

Cochrane Reviews will continue to be produced.

Cochrane UK in Oxford to close at the end of March 2024 | Cochrane UK