The mission of the AHSNs…to break through the 17 year implementation barrier.        

World Mental Health Day is a day when we can celebrate a new era of unprecedented awareness and support for mental health – support that comes from members of the Royal Family and the public, parliamentarians, public health planners, front line blue light services in all agencies and health and social care professionals.  For the first time in healthcare history, providing timely, evidence based care for the one in four people in our county who experience mental illness, is a national priority......                                              

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The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN has supported the roll out of a local ‘reducing physical health deaths’ initiative that took the evidence base on how to improve physical health for patients with a serious mental health problem, originally piloted in Bradford by mental health nurse champion Kate Dale and CCG GP mental health lead Angela Moulson. A clinician decision digital template for primary care GPs and practice nurses, and a training and support programme has been developed.

The Physical Health toolkit is now being rolled out across the country. The Bradford Physical Health Assessment Template is now available nationally for Systm1 and EMIS web IT systems. In total 610 organisations nationally use a variation of the Systm1 template. This is over seven times as many organisations as the initial 80 GP practices in Bradford and Airedale. The Bradford Physical Health Assessment template has been completed over 2,600 times spanning 59 Clinical Commissioning Groups across the country.

If all patients with a serious mental illness and eligible for a physical health check received this simple intervention, health economics modelling indicates that it would save the NHS around £11 million over 10 years in the Yorkshire and Humber region alone.  

Learn more about how South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust have adopted this programme through our Mental Health Physical Health video here.

Dementia affects about 850,000 people in the UK, with a cost of £26 billion per annum. 60,000 deaths a year are directly attributable to dementia. The only way to beat the condition is through research.

Join Dementia Research (JDR) allows people to easily register their interest in participating in research via an online form and matches them to appropriate studies. Once matched, individuals and researchers are able to discuss participation in studies.

Since joining the NIA, there are now 19,138 people signed up, up from 7,282 a year ago – a 163% increase. The number of people enrolled in studies through JDR is now 5,364, up from 1,346, a 299% increase. 132 NHS trusts have ordered promotional materials compared to 56 before the NIA.

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