Appendix J. Greater Glasgow Health Board - Primary Care Mental Health Teams
Topics: Mental Health; Primary Care
Background
Each year, around 170,000 people experience common mental health problems, from relationship problems to anxiety and depression. In addition, rates of distress are twice as high in the most deprived areas. Despite this, few services exist that can adequately meet the needs of those experiencing problems and the services that do exist are characterised by access difficulties and long waiting lists.
Unmet need funding was invested in an existing planned programme to provide primary care mental health ( PCMH) services. The unmet needs money facilitated completion of the roll-out of this programme to fund services in the south and east of Glasgow.
Funding allocation
The pilot was allocated £2,332,000
Aim(s)
To roll-out a planned programme to provide primary care mental health ( PCMH) services in the south and east of Glasgow.
Methodology
Both PCMH teams have been designed around a 'stepped' or 'matched' care model which, in practice, means that a range of interventions are offered from advice, information and signposting through to self help, group and individual therapies.
One of the key features of this model is that it directly aims to address the issues of easy access and addressing a large volume of clients. It does this by allowing self-referral in addition to standard GP referral and is able to match individual's need to an appropriate and timely intervention.
Key results
In both areas, a high volume of referrals, contacts and interventions have been recorded and there is evidence of clinical effectiveness and client satisfaction.
For example, a Stress Control psycho-educational group was held over six evenings and there is clinical outcome data to show its effectiveness. The first session of the most recent course was attended by 120 people, a figure that far outweighs the number of clients that get help through a traditional one-to-one therapist model in a single year. Additionally, up to 85% of clients had not used mental health services before.
In terms of unmet need, both teams reported high proportions of clients from the most deprived postcode areas then the more affluent areas. However, as this information is from referrals only, there is also evidence that DNA (Did Not Attend) rates from these areas are higher than more affluent areas.
Additionally, there is a continuing lack of uptake amongst young men, ethnic minorities and older people.
Conclusions
The services provided as part of the programme have been used by an increased number of people in the two areas and have proved to be effective and popular. There has also been increased uptake of services from the most deprived areas when compared with more affluent areas.
However, there remains a need to target certain population types in deprived communities such as old people, young men and ethnic minorities.