Supporting the approved mental health professional network

We are delighted to be supporting the approved mental health professional network.

In partnership with PCH (which is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care) we are working with five local authorities, we are embedding the National Service Standards to improve service delivery for people.

Alexia Fenwick, Professional Development Lead explains: “Approved mental health professionals play a critical role in bringing an independent and social perspective to assessing vulnerable people in crisis. Supporting services to embed National Service Standards will support the workforce, strengthen understanding between partner agencies and most crucially improve the experience of people receiving their services.”

What are approved mental health professionals?

Approved mental health professionals (AMHPs) are responsible for upholding the human rights of people being assessed under the Mental Health Act.

Working with health and social care colleagues, they bring a social perspective to assessments, looking at all the options for support that maybe available to them and ensuring that any treatment is provided in the least restrictive way possible.

What are the National Service Standards?

These nationally recognised set of standards offer AMHPs, their services and local authorities a framework of excellence.

They seek to create a united direction for AMHP services, address the operational challenges and focus on training requirements. Critically they also provide a simple mapping, evaluation and planning toolkit to support AMHP services assess their work.

Supporting their use to drive improvements

Our team will be supporting consistent implementation of the standards to acknowledge what is working well and good practice, as well as drive improvements for AMHP services.

Experts in workforce development and the implementation of professional standards, we have a number of AMHPs in our network – in our Practice Specialist Team, amongst our programme consultant social workers and the Alumni Community – whose insights will be invaluable to this project.

Further information

We are delivering practical support to embed the national service standards with:

• York City Council and North Yorkshire Council
• North East ADASS which is on behalf of the 13 local authorities in the North East and Cumberland
  Nottinghamshire County Council
• Midland Partnership Foundation Trust and Staffordshire County Council
• Harrow Council

To find out more about this project, or our services, contact: Rachel Slade on programme@thinkahead.org.