Culture of care standards for mental health inpatient services

NHS Publication

The culture of care standards for mental health inpatient care set out in this guidance support all providers to realise the culture of care within inpatient settings everyone wants to experience – people who need this care and their families, and the staff who provide this care. They apply across the life course to all NHS-funded mental health inpatient service types, including those for people with a learning disability and autistic people, as well as specialised mental health inpatient services such as mother and baby units, secure services, and children and young people’s mental health inpatient services.

Take a read: NHS England » Culture of care standards for mental health inpatient services

Public Health

Current Awareness Updates

Age-Friendly Health Systems: Guide to Care of Older Adults in Nursing Homes.
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); 2022.
(This updated [US] guide helps care teams prepare for, test, and implement age-friendly care practices. Designed to be used with an accompanying workbook for nursing home teams, the guide outlines the 4Ms – What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility – for nursing home care of older adults.)

Cold weather plan for England.
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA); 2022.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/cold-weather-plan-for-england
(01 November 2022: Updated Cold weather health risks slide set.)

WHO: At least 17 million people in the WHO European Region experienced long COVID in the first two years of the pandemic; millions may have to live with it for years to come.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2022.
(To help address the gaps in our knowledge of long COVID and advocate for people living with the condition, WHO/Europe today announced an official partnership with Long COVID Europe, a network organization that to date comprises 19 patient associations, based in Member States across the European Region.)

Poverty and the health and care system: the role of data and partnership in bringing change .
The King’s Fund; 2022.
(Poverty causes ill health, drives inequality in health outcomes and increases use of health services. This King’s Fund long read considers how successful sharing and acting on data can support health and care systems in mitigating, reducing and preventing poverty’s effects on health.)

Developing learning health systems in the UK: priorities for action.
The Health Foundation; 2022.
(Learning health systems are able to learn from the routine care they deliver and improve it as a result. In this report, we explore in detail what makes a learning health system, and look at how they can be developed. We explore four important areas especially relevant to LHSs: learning from data, harnessing technology, nurturing learning communities and implementing improvements to services.)

Sensory-friendly resource pack: resources to improve the sensory environment for autistic people.
NHS England; 2022.
(During 2021/22 NHS England has funded a variety of projects to support Integrated Care Systems in developing sensory friendly environments for autistic people. This document outlines the projects commissioned and draws them together into a cohesive resource pack for local health systems to use to support their autistic citizens.)

Public Health

Current Awareness

Sexual assault has lasting effects on teenagers’ mental health and education.
NIHR Evidence; 2022.
(The mental and physical health symptoms reported in this study were higher than in the general population. Young people who had been involved with social services, or who had mental health problems before the assault had worse mental health problems and worse school attendance afterwards. Sexual assault can therefore increase health inequalities in this already vulnerable group.)

Autistic people’s healthcare information strategy for England.
NHS England; 2022.
(This document sets out an initial strategy for the development of information about the health of, and health care received by people with autism in England, from sources already collected or being established. It proposes the development of three dashboards, setting out statistics for: autism diagnosis services and transition from child to adult services; long-term health conditions, healthcare use and mortality for autistic people; more intensive inputs from mental health services.)

Suicide prevention – priorities in the next decade.
(Consultant psychiatrist JS Bamrah speaks to Professor Louis Appleby, who leads the National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England and directs the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness. The webinar will cover current suicide prevention priorities, tying in with the recently announced suicide prevention strategy from the UK Government, before answering questions from the chair and audience. The event is open to BMA members and non-members.)

Food poverty: households, food banks and free school meals
House of Commons Library; 2022.
(There is no widely accepted definition of ‘food poverty’. However, a household can broadly be defined as experiencing food poverty or ‘household food insecurity’ if they cannot (or are uncertain about whether they can) acquire “an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways”. The increase in the cost of living has increased household food insecurity.)

Learning from lives and deaths

People with a learning disability and autistic people (LeDeR) policy 2021

This policy aims to set out for the first time for the NHS the core aims and values of the LeDeR programme and the expectations placed on different parts of the health and social care system in delivering the programme from June 2021.

Also available in easy read format.