Improving the physical health of adults with severe mental illness: essential actions

Published: Oct 2016

The report makes eight recommendations to key bodies and inspectorates, including:

The creation of a new national steering group to lead and link key stakeholders with experts from the professions so that important aspects of physical healthcare are addressed and monitored at a national level.
Each mental health service, acute hospital, general medical practice or GP federation should develop a physical health strategy for patients with SMI which is approved by the board and reviewed annually; they should also appoint a lead clinician at board level to be responsible for its implementation.
Training for healthcare staff should be reviewed to ensure healthcare professionals are equipped to fulfil the physical health needs of people with SMI, such as being able to recognise physical illness and take appropriate action.
Infrastructure should be improved; e.g. systems for recognising acute illness; improved Information Technology to help with meeting current health-needs; better access to investigation results to help to improve standards of both physical and mental healthcare.

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