mental health and mental health care

Women's Aid website

Women's Aid is the national domestic violence charity which co-ordinates and supports an England-wide network of over 300 local projects, providing over 500 refuges, helplines, outreach services and advice centres. Our work is built on almost 30 years of campaigning and developing new responses to domestic violence.

Practical guide to preparing for mental health payment by results

Mental health payment by results is a funding methodology which aims to predict mental health need and cost more accurately. The methodology involves identifying service users with similar characteristics (they are to be grouped into 21 "clusters") and will be allocated to groups using an assessment tool.

This practical guide contains 10 actions to help local areas prepare for mental health payment by results policy. The guide also contains a glossary of common terminology and a check-list to help commissioners of services.

Key messages: overview of mental health services

Key messages are presented from a study looking at mental health services provided by the NHS, councils, prisons, the police and the voluntary sector across Scotland for all ages. The study examines the accessibility and availability of mental health services and how much is spent on them.

The report provides an overview of mental health services and is the first in a series of planned reports in this area. The researchers carried out an overview to highlight areas for improvement and to identify priorities for future audit work.

Finding strength from within: report on three local projects looking at mental health and recovery with people from some of the black and minority ethnic communities in Edinburgh

This exploratory community development project gathered the experiences around recovery of people using mental health services who come from some of the black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in Edinburgh. The project involved around 50 people from BME communities. The work with each of the three smaller projects was designed around the circumstances of that service and the ways in which those participants or service users wished to take part. This took place between December 2007 and May 2008.

A missed opportunity?: community sentences and the mental health treatment requirement

The Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) is one of 12 options (‘requirements’) available to sentencers when constructing a Community Order or a Suspended Sentence Order. The MHTR can be given to an offender with mental health problems who does not require immediate compulsory hospital admission under the Mental Health Act. If they give their consent, the MHTR requires them to receive mental health treatment for a specified period.