Guidance for commissioners of primary mental health services

Guidance for commissioners of primary mental health care services 1
Volume
Two:
Practical
mental health
commissioning
Guidance for commissioners of
primary mental
health care services
Joint Commissioning Panel
for Mental Health
www.jcpmh.info

for Mental Health
Co-chaired by:
Membership:
www.jcpmh.info

2 Practical Mental Health Commissioning
Contents
Executive
summary
Introduction
04
What are
primary mental
health care
services?
Why is primary
mental health
care important
to commissioners?
05 05
What do we
know about
current primary
mental health
care services?
07
What would
a good primary
mental health care
service look like?
08
Supporting
the delivery
of the mental
health strategy
14
Resources
and references
16

Executive summary
• Mental health problems should be
managed mainly in primary care by
the primary health care team working
collaboratively with other services,
with access to specialist expertise and
to a range of secondary care services
as required.
• Effective treatment of common mental
health disorders in primary care requires
integrated services using a stepped care
model. This should deliver evidence-
based treatments that can be accessed
via flexible referral routes, including
self-referral, and offer a choice of
psychological and non-psychological
interventions.
• Primary mental health care services
should have a clear focus on prevention
and early identification.
• Primary mental health care services
should promote self-management by
patients, including use of personalised
care plans.
• Care co-ordination (case management)
and methodical management of
systematic care pathways are essential
to good primary mental health care
services.
• Primary mental health care should be
holistic – mental health has physical,
psychological, social and spiritual
elements.
• The outcomes of primary mental health
care work should be systematically
measured and reported.
• Allocation of funds to reflect these
principles will result in better integrated
patient care pathways that are able to
meet a wider range of needs. Currently,
gaps at the interface between primary
mental health care and secondary
mental health and acute services can
mean that patients disengage, revolve
or get ‘stuck’ in different parts of the
system.
• Improving the management of mental
illness in primary care will contribute
to meeting the objectives of the
No Health without Mental Health
mental health strategy and the Quality,
Innovation, Productivity and Prevention
(QIPP) Challenge.

The Joint Commissioning Panel
for Mental Health (JCP-MH)
(www.jcpmh.info) is a new
collaboration co-chaired by
the Royal College of General
Practitioners and the Royal
College of Psychiatrists,
which brings together leading
organisations and individuals
with an interest in commissioning
for mental health and learning
disabilities. These include:
• Service users and carers
• Department of Health
• Association of Directors
of Adult Social Services
• NHS Confederation
• Mind
• Rethink Mental Illness
• National Survivor User Network
• National Involvement Partnership
• Royal College of Nursing
• Afiya Trust
• British Psychological Society
• Representatives of the English
Strategic Health Authorities
• Mental Health Providers Forum
• New Savoy Partnership
• Representation from
Specialised Commissioning
• Healthcare Financial
Management Association.
The JCP-MH is part of the implementation
arm of the government mental health
strategy No Health without Mental Health.1
The JCP-MH has two primary aims:
• to bring together service users, carers,
clinicians, commissioners, managers and
others to work towards values-based
commissioning
Introduction
• to integrate scientific evidence,
service user and carer experience and
viewpoints, and innovative service
evaluations in order to produce the best
possible advice on commissioning the
design and delivery of high quality mental
health, learning disabilities, and public
mental health and wellbeing services.
The JCP-MH:
• has published Practical Mental
Health Commissioning,2
a briefing on
the key values and principles for effective
mental health commissioning
• provides practical guidance and a
developing framework for mental health
• will support commissioners of public
mental health to deliver the best
possible outcomes for community
health and wellbeing
• has published a series of short guides
describing ‘what good looks like’ in
various mental health service settings.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is about the
commissioning of good quality,
integrated primary mental health
care and should be of value to:
• the NHS Commissioning Board, as it
will hold the contracts for general
medical services which should reflect
what this guidance is saying about
primary mental health care
• Clinical Commissioning Groups, as
the commissioning of both specialist
and acute secondary mental health
services needs to reflect the increased
activity in integrated primary care teams,
and reduced activity in secondary care
suggested by this guide, and
• Health and Wellbeing Boards, as the
commissioning of public mental health
and wellbeing should sit alongside the
preventative activity in primary care
described in this guidance.
How will this guide help you?
This guide has been written by
a group of primary mental health
care experts, in consultation with
patients and carers.
The content is primarily evidence-based
but ideas deemed to be best practice by
expert consensus have also been included.
By the end of this guide, readers should be
more familiar with the concept of primary
mental health care and better equipped to:
• understand what good quality,
modern, primary mental health care
services look like
• commission primary mental health
care services
• understand how and why a good primary
mental health care service contributes
to achieving the aims of the mental
health strategy and improves quality and
productivity, both in itself and by enabling
changes in other parts of the system.
This guide also covers issues relating to
commissioning primary mental health care
services. It describes:
• the benefits of primary mental health
care services
• the optimum skill mix in primary mental
health care teams.
The guide draws on and refers to
previously published guidance, including
NICE guidelines for common mental
health problems (CG123), depression
(CG28, 90, 91), various anxiety disorders
(CG 26, 31,113), eating disorders (CG9)
and self-harm (CG16).

What are primary
mental health care
services services?
Primary mental health care is a relatively
recent concept in health care. It is
defined by the World Health Organisation
as follows3
:
• first line interventions that are
provided as an integral part of general
health care, and
• mental health care that is provided by
primary care workers who are skilled,
able and supported to provide mental
health services.
The development of primary mental
health care has reflected a need for earlier
detection of problems, better management
of chronic illness and improved partnership
working between the patient, the extended
primary health care team and local
community support networks and providers.
For many patients, developing a good
relationship with their general practitioner
(GP) is central to continuity of care, as
this facilitates good engagement with,
and communication across, the whole
of primary care. Primary care is also most
people’s first port of call in times
of health care need. Good engagement
and communication allows the GP, and
indeed any member of the primary care
team, to deliver good collaborative care,
working with other members of the team
and with mental health specialists.
Patients will need appropriate evidence-
based interventions, ranging from active
monitoring and guided self-help through
to higher intensity interventions such
as psychological therapy. Crucial to the
effective functioning of primary mental
health care teams is expert supervision and
case management with a consistent and
systematic focus on outcomes.
Continuous professional development and
training curriculums that reflect current
NICE guidance ensure that relevant skills are
gained and maintained. Ideally, these will be
organised so that different members of the
primary care team train together.
Why is primary mental health care
important to commissioners?
Policy imperatives
A number of relevant recent
policy imperatives make the
provision of good quality
primary mental health care
services a priority for clinical
commissioning groups.
These include:
• the emphasis on providing care as close
to the patient’s home as possible
• the need to take patients’ views into
account (‘No decision about me
without me’1
)
• patients’ and their carers’ preference
for being treated in primary care, where
the environment is less stigmatising and
where physical and mental health care
can more easily be delivered together.
Mental health problems
are common and costly
Some 17.6% of the adult
population (21.0% of women
and 11.9% of men) have a
common mental health problem
(anxiety or depression).4
A further six per cent have alcohol
dependence, three per cent have drug
dependence and 21% have nicotine
dependence (42% of tobacco consumed
in England is by people with a mental
illness).4,5
Rates of personality disorder
are 5.4% for men and 3.4% for women6
and 0.4% have psychosis (schizophrenia
or bipolar disorder).4
A further 17% of
the population experiences sub-threshold
common mental problems,4
six per
cent have sub-threshold psychosis7
and
24% drink alcohol at levels defined as
hazardous to their health.4
Sub-threshold
health status presents an important
opportunity for prevention and early
intervention.
Broadly, this means that, in a group
of 2000 patients at any one time, an
average general practice will be treating:
• 352 people with a common
mental health problem
• 8 with psychosis
• 120 with alcohol dependency
• 60 with drug dependency
• 352 with a sub-threshold common
mental health problem
• 120 with a sub-threshold psychosis
• 176 with a personality disorder
• 125 (out of the 500 on an average GP
practice list) with a long-term condition
with a co-morbid mental illness
• 100 with medically unexplained
symptoms not attributable to any
other psychiatric problem (MUS).
This means about one in four of a full-
time GP’s patients will need treatment for
mental health problems in primary care.
The overall annual spending on the NHS
in England was approximately £105 billion
in 2009.8
Of this spend, around eight
per cent is allocated to (all) primary care
services9
and around 12% to secondary
and tertiary mental health services.10
However 23% of the overall burden of
disease is due to mental disorder and
self-inflicted injury (by comparison, just
16% is due respectively to cancer and
to cardiovascular disease).1
In England,
most people with a mental disorder except
psychosis receive no intervention.4
For common mental disorder which is
the most prevalent mental disorder, only
24% receive any intervention
Prevention and
early intervention
Early intervention is vital,
both to improve people’s life
chances and reduce health
care costs. Primary care is
where this should happen.
Different levels of prevention include
primary (preventing illness from occurring
in the first place), secondary (early
identification and treatment) and tertiary
(promotion of recovery and relapse
prevention early intervention).

Why is primary mental health care important to commissioners? (continued)
Prevention activities may avoid the
need for specialist secondary care, and
its associated higher costs. But primary
mental health care teams need to be
resourced to undertake pro-active and
outreach work with at-risk groups, and
to develop self-referral routes into services.
This means that clinical and service leads
and commissioners need to understand
the high-risk groups and the ages at
which mental illnesses are more likely
to occur. They also need to ensure that
skill mixes and service models include
specific roles to deliver preventive and
early interventions, such as, for example,
psychological wellbeing practitioners.
Particular groups are at much higher
risk of mental illness and therefore need
to be targeted for preventive and early
interventions. They include:
• people on low incomes (people with
household incomes in the lowest 20%
are at higher risk of mental health
problems than those with incomes
in the highest 20%4
)
• black and minority ethnic groups
(they are at two- to three-fold
increased risk of suicide11
and a nearly
four-fold increased of psychosis12
)
• people with learning disability (they
have a two-fold increased risk of
depression and a three-fold increased
risk of schizophrenia13
)
• lesbian, gay and bisexual people
(they are at higher risk of common
mental disorders, suicide attempt,
psychosis and alcohol dependence14
)
• people with a chronic physical
illness (they have a two- to three-
fold increased risk of depression in
comparison with people in good physical
health, and this increases to a seven-
fold increased risk in those with two or
more chronic physical illnesses15
– one in
two people with advanced cancer also
develop mental health problems16
)
• older adults (they are at increased risk
of depression and, particularly if living
alone, suicide)
• children with conduct disorders
(a significant proportion of adult
mental health problems are preceded
by emotional or conduct disorders
in childhood17
).
Carers
Carers of people with long-term illness and
disability are at greater risk of poor health
than the general population. They are
particularly likely to develop depression. In
an Office for National Statistics survey, 30%
of carers rated their health status as fair or
poor, and 33% said that caring made them
depressed at least some of the time. Those
caring for a spouse or partner were most
likely to report mental health problems.
Thirteen per cent of carers said they had
consulted a GP about being anxious or
depressed or about a mental, nervous or
emotional problem, and one per cent had
done so in the previous two weeks.18
Commissioners could work proactively
with practices to identify carers who could
be at risk of mental health problems.
They could also ensure that social services
departments systematically offer the
assessments to which carers are legally
entitled and follow up any findings with
appropriate referral or intervention. There
is a statutory requirement to act on the
outcomes of the carer assessment if a
critical risk is identified; systems should be
put in place to ensure this happens.
Early intervention in psychosis
Early intervention in psychosis services
provide care for young people aged 14–35
years for periods of up to three years after
a first episode of psychosis. These early
intervention services are recommended by
NICE, are effective in changing the early
course of psychosis,19
provide net savings
to the NHS and are rated highly for patient
satisfaction.20
(Further details can be
found in the forthcoming commissioning
guidance on Specialist Community Mental
Health Services.)
The overlap between
mental and physical health
People with mental health
problems have much higher rates
of physical illness. For instance,
depression is associated with
increased risk of coronary heart
disease21
and diabetes.22
The
presence of mental illness can
also complicate the management
of a physical illness and worsen
the prognosis.
The health consequences of mental
illness are most extreme for people with
a psychosis (schizophrenia or bipolar
disorder). Men with schizophrenia living in
the community have a 20.5 year reduced
life expectancy; women have 16.4 year
reduced life expectancy.23
The main cause
of these excess deaths is cardiovascular
disease, suggesting that the deaths are
mostly preventable.
The quality and
productivity challenge
One of the three main themes of
the national Quality, Innovation,
Productivity and Prevention
(QIPP) programme for mental
health is the alignment of
physical health care with mental
health care services.
If long-term conditions, co-morbid physical
and mental ill health and medically
unexplained symptoms can be managed
more effectively in primary care settings,
this will reduce demand on acute inpatient
services. Effective prevention and early
intervention will also reduce demand on
all types of secondary care, and integrated
primary care services are ideally placed to
deliver this.

What do we know about current
primary mental health care services?
There is no standardised model
for the commissioning and
provision of primary mental
health care services. The current
patterns of service provision
vary greatly and in most
areas are likely to result from
historical factors.
Signs that current primary care mental
health systems are not working well include
the following:
• the primary–secondary care interface
in mental health fails to meet patient
need, leading to:
– delays in access
– disparity between estimated
numbers with illness and those
receiving treatment
– complex and changing care pathways
– gaps in service provision where
patients’ needs fall between
service providers
– rigid, access criteria that do not
reflect actual patient need.
• response to people with common
mental health problems is variable –
some, but not all, are diagnosed and
receive evidence-based treatments –
and there is no systematic process for
allocating patients to appropriate care
pathways (most of which should be
in primary care)
• there is inconsistent assessment of
the impact of mental distress and
symptoms of common mental illnesses
on a person’s capacity to work, or on
their family life and relationships, and
often no clear systems in place for early
intervention to help people recover and
return to work more rapidly
• there is a lack of understanding of
how collaborative care works, the
roles and responsibilities of specialists
operating in primary care settings and
the importance of the interface between
psychiatrists and GPs
• the majority of patients experience
good consultations with GPs but there is
sometimes a delay in getting a diagnosis,
not all patients receive information
about and an explanation of their
diagnosis and treatment, and medication
may be over-used because there are no
alternative options
• people with mental health problems are
not engaging with primary care either
because they feel they would be wasting
the GP’s time, or because they feel GPs
do not have time to listen to them and
do not understand how they feel24
• there may be a mismatch between
the GP’s views of the cause of the
mental health problem and how to treat
it and those of the patient – the GP
may adopt a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model,
and the patient may want simply to be
listened to and helped to self-manage
their mental health, using a personalised
care plan
• GPs may lack confidence in their
ability to provide appropriate services,
particularly for people with psychosis,
and may require patients to be seen
in the psychiatric outpatient clinic once
or twice a year for monitoring against
risk criteria.

What would a good primary
mental health care service look like?
Model of service delivery
The key to developing patient-
centred primary mental health
care services is to put the
patient’s needs at their heart.
This means ensuring services
are conveniently located and
easily accessible in the primary
care setting. It also means
being emotionally available
and interested in the patient.
A good primary mental health care
service is:
• evidence based – treatments should
be based on sound clinical judgement
informed by NICE guidelines.
• patient-centred – care should be
personalised, people should be given
time to talk, should be listened to,
provided with information and offered
a choice about their care. Patients
should actively participate in decision-
making, feel engaged and have a sense
of ownership.
• Based on need – services should be
commissioned and provided on the basis
of need and the estimated prevalence of
mental health problems
• age inclusive – services should recognise
that opportunities exist for prevention
at all life stages, that the origins of most
major mental health problems lie in the
early years, and that care should not be
compartmentalised or interrupted on
grounds of chronological age alone.
• capable – the primary mental health
care team needs to have the knowledge
and skills to understand how best to
provide appropriate services for people
with mental health problems. This may
require additional education and training
opportunities.
• integrated – commissioning primary
mental health care services should be
integrated with the commissioning
of specialist mental health services.
The interfaces between different
parts of the system and with other
agencies (such as social services) need
to be seamless, because people’s
needs straddle health and social care.
• accessible – care pathways should
include treatments that can be accessed
through self-referral and should address
diversity in local communities.
This includes making reasonable
adjustments for people with special
needs. Patients should be treated
promptly; they should not have to wait
until they become ill or their condition
becomes more complex and they
require more intensive treatment.
• Sufficient capacity – commissioned
services should have the sufficient
capacity to treat numbers estimated to
have different types of mental health
problems
• outcome-focused – treatments should
be systematic and their outcomes
monitored continuously using a
common set of measures appropriate
to the patient’s problems. Accurate
assessment requires high levels of pre–
post data completeness. For people with
depression and anxiety disorders, this is
most easily achieved by routine, session-
by-session outcome monitoring. This
approach also facilitates the choice of
interventions and other clinical decisions.
• recovery-focused – a recovery focus is
essential to effective service delivery.
Practitioners should support patients
to help themselves and reinforce the
message that recovery is possible, and
that they can regain employment and
social networks. This is particularly
important for people who have been out
of work for some time. Recovery is not
simply about a reduction in, or removal
of, symptoms; it is about communicating
hope and restoring opportunity and a
sense of agency to patients.25
• community-linked – primary mental
health care services should be linked
to a range of voluntary and community
sector services that patients can choose
(ie. they are not limited to what
commissioners choose to fund), and
that either work alongside or are
integrated with the primary mental
health care team.
• preventative – interventions should be
targeted at individuals identified from
GP service ‘Read Codes’ as at risk of
developing mental health problems.

Key components of the service
NICE guidelines for depression
(CG90 and CG91)15,26
and
some anxiety disorders
(CG31,113 but not CG26)27-29
talk about a stepped model
of care (see below).
This framework for service delivery
describes the patient’s journey in the care
of a multi-disciplinary team that offers the
full range of evidence-based interventions
within an integrated care pathway.
The core principle of stepped care is that
people are matched to an intervention
that is appropriate to their level of need
and preference. The clinician needs to
make a balanced judgement based on
what would deliver the best, sustained
health outcomes. The patient should also
be able to change treatments as they
progress, and their expectations, their
confidence in the therapist, and their
views about the suitability of the treatment
should also be taken into account.
The key operational consideration for
stepped care models is that the patient
care plan is constantly reviewed through
active case management, using session-
by-session outcomes. Appointment times
and locations should also be flexible and
responsive. Patients can move between
types of therapy depending on their
level of need, but will still receive these
treatments in primary care.
NICE recommends cognitive behavioural
therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders but
suggests a broader range of treatments
for depression.15
The Department of
Health’s Improving Access to Psychological
Therapies (IAPT) initiative has produced a
useful patient information guide, Which
Talking Therapy for Depression (available
at www.iapt.nhs.uk/news/which-talking-
therapy-for-depression/), which describes
the different psychological therapies
recommended by NICE for treatment
of depression, how they work, and the
outcomes patients can expect from each
of them. IAPT has also produced a Patient
Experience Questionnaire that can be used
to ensure that patients receive the care
they want, delivered in a person-centred
way (www.iapt.nhs.uk/search/?keywords=
patient+experience+questionnaire).
Stepped care model of care
Commissioners may wish to
commission a stepped care
model that offers an integrated
care pathway for primary
mental health care services.
Step one
Step one includes supported
self-management of psychological
and emotional wellbeing, social
prescribing, peer experts and mentors,
health trainers, psychological wellbeing
practitioners trained in cognitive
behavioural treatments for people with
mild to moderate anxiety and depression,
and access to e-mental health services
such as on-line peer support groups.
Peer experts and peer mentors
Patients and carers can be supported to
support each other in patient and carer
groups. Peer mentors and patient experts
can be employed in the primary mental
health care team to work alongside
patients. Experts by experience can
coordinate and distribute information
about self-management, co-ordinate
mentorship programmes, and offer
training and deployment of people with
lived experience for specific purposes,
such as advocacy.
Health trainers
Health trainers can help patients access
computerised and internet therapies and
support, teach techniques for enhancing
psychological resilience, promote
wellbeing skills, teach the principles of
mental health first aid and introduce
them to relevant organisations in the
community where they can get further
help. The health trainer in each practice
team could be responsible for liaising
with their peers in other practice teams
to map and carry out quality assurance of
community services used by their patients.
Graduate primary care mental health
workers, who used to perform a similar
role, have been shown to be cost effective
and to improve patient satisfaction.30,31
Social prescribing
Social prescribing, or ‘community
referral’, supports improved access
both to psychological treatments
and to interventions addressing the
wider determinants of mental health,
such as exercise on prescription and
neighbourhood schemes. Research into
social prescribing32
shows benefits
in three key areas: improved mental
health outcomes, improved community
wellbeing and reduced social exclusion.
There is a strong case for commissioning
social prescribing for mental health, based
on the relationship between mental health
and other outcomes, and on the growing
evidence of demand for a wider range of
early responses to psychosocial problems.
For further information please see the
Karis Neighbourhood Scheme (see page
12). A number of patients presenting in
primary care will prefer to find healing
through non-traditional and social care
routes. Some may feel their needs would
be best met through faith environments
and networks. Innovative forms of social
prescribing include access to e-mental
health and online support networks.
The New Savoy Partnership has produced
a resource directory and guidelines for
good practice for these services
(www.newsavoypartnership.org).

What would a good primary mental health care service look like? (continued)
Step two
Step two comprises co-ordinated care
involving the primary care team, and
includes provision of low intensity
therapies and links to employment
support, carer support and other social
support services.
Many patients will be supported well
by an individual clinician – most commonly
a GP, but it could be a practice nurse,
a health visitor, a psychological wellbeing
practitioner or a counsellor. This clinician
will carry out the initial assessment and
identify which care cluster best describes
the needs of the patient. If the clinician
feels that their skills alone are not
sufficient, they will refer on, usually
in-house, to a case manager or to another
colleague with a different set of skills, for
further assessment. Based on the further
in-depth assessment, they will suggest
additional low intensity psychological
interventions or community resources.
Patients may want their therapist at Step
two to act as a care co-ordinator in terms
of signposting and navigating access to the
various NICE-recommended options, such
as structured exercise groups for depression.
All primary mental health care teams should
be able to make referrals to therapists
trained in low intensity psychological
treatments, such as the short-term cognitive
behaviour therapies recommended for
patients with depression and anxiety and
other common mental disorders.
Step three
Step three comprises high intensity
psychological therapies and/or medication
for people with more complex needs
(moderate to severe depression or anxiety
disorders, psychosis, and co-morbid
physical health problems).33-35
Initial treatment should be NICE-
recommended psychological therapy
delivered by a high intensity worker, and/
or medication. For people with moderate
to severe depression whose symptoms
do not respond to these interventions,
NICE recommends collaborative care.26
There is evidence that this approach
is effective with people with co-morbid
long-term conditions, and some emerging
evidence that it may be helpful for people
with psychosis.
The key components of collaborative
care are:
• a multi-professional approach provided
by practitioners from at least two
different disciplines.
• a case manager (for example, a
community psychiatric nurse, psychologist
or graduate mental health worker),
who works with the GP in primary
care and receives weekly supervision
from specialist mental health, medical
or psychological therapy clinicians.
Their role would include the delivery
of (some) psychosocial interventions,
care coordination and liaison with other
providers to ensure smooth transition
along care pathways, step up or down as
required, regular and robust reviews of
progress, and the delivery of systematic
outcomes measures.
• integrated communication between
providers – for example, verbal/face-
to-face contact between primary and
mental health care providers, weekly
team meetings, and shared records
via the existing primary care electronic
records system.
• education and facilitation of providers to
ensure rapid development of new roles
within a collaborative care environment.
The GP, in liaison with whoever is providing
the psychological care, will continue to
review and manage the prescribing of
psychotropic medication, if the patient
wants it, and oversee their physical health
care. One GP or a team of GPs may take
this on for their whole practice or, in
some cases, for a group of practices, as a
designated mental health liaison role in the
delivery of collaborative care.
Step four
Step four comprises specialist mental
health care, including extended and
intensive therapies.
Clear, well understood pathways must be
in place between the primary care mental
health team, IAPT services and specialist
mental health services. The most obvious
relationship is with the specialist community
mental health services, but there may
also be a relationship with acute liaison
services (see the companion commissioning
guidance on acute liaison). These provide
specialist mental health input to acute
hospitals, and also oversee acute inpatient
and community-based interventions
for comorbid long-term conditions and
medically unexplained symptoms.
Appropriate management of medically
unexplained symptoms should lead to a
significant reduction in the inappropriate
use of acute inpatient resources. Specialist
mental health teams may operate across
several practices, in which case each
practice could have a practice-affiliated
specialist team member (for instance a
community psychiatric nurse) with whom
the primary care mental health team can
work (see the forthcoming companion
guidance on Specialist Mental Health
Community Services).
Specialist mental health care can be
provided in a primary care setting so
primary care staff can access expertise
without the need for cumbersome referral
processes and the stigmatisation that
sometimes affects patients in secondary
care settings.

Standards
Commissioners will want
to commission primary care
mental health services that can
demonstrate that they meet the
recognised standards for their
service, such as the NICE
quality standard for depression.
The optimum primary
mental health care team
To provide the range of services set out
above, primary mental health care services
will need to include a range of staff within
a multidisciplinary team. The professional
backgrounds of the team members will be
specific to their local context.
Primary mental health care teams may
include the following:
• the core primary care team of the
GP and the practice nurse
• primary care mental health clinicians
• primary care-based mental health
specialists
• third sector (not-for-profit) providers
and social enterprises (eg. community
organisations and networks, including
faith groups)
• other community-based, non-specialist
practitioners (for example, school nurses
and health visitors)
• service user and carer experts by
experience.
IAPT teams
IAPT services offer integrated talking
treatments for depression and anxiety
across a range of NICE-approved
modalities. All IAPT therapies include
routine, session-by-session outcome
monitoring.
Treatment is provided by two types of
psychological therapy practitioners:
• psychological wellbeing practitioners
trained in cognitive behavioural
approaches for people with mild to
moderate anxiety and depression
(these approaches include guided
self-help and psycho-educational
groupwork)
• high intensity therapists trained in CBT,
counselling for depression, interpersonal
psychotherapy, dynamic interpersonal
therapy, and couples therapy for
depression for people with moderate and
severe depression and anxiety disorders.
All IAPT practitioners receive routine,
outcomes-focused supervision and
services also include administrative staff,
employment advisers and a GP adviser
and have links with other services such
as housing, drugs advice and welfare
benefits advice.
Outcomes
The following measures can be used
to ensure services achieve high clinical,
cost, quality and safety outcomes.
For cost effectiveness
• locally agreed referral thresholds,
including use of the mental health
clustering tool
• percentage of people diagnosed with
a long-term condition who have been
screened for anxiety and depression
• percentage of people with medically
unexplained symptoms receiving
evidence-based treatment in
primary care.36
For effectiveness
• personalised care plans and
patient goals
• CORE (for effectiveness of talking
treatments)
• compliance with IAPT data standard
and sessional monitoring (see www.iapt.
nhs.uk/services/measuring-outcomes).
For patient safety
• under-75 mortality rate in people with
serious mental illness (outcome 1.5 of
the NHS Outcomes Framework 11/12)
• QOF incentives to assess and manage
the physical health of people with severe
mental illness (relates to shared objective
3 of the No Health without Mental
Health mental health strategy1
)
• completed suicide rates (relates to
shared objective 5 of the mental health
strategy and the forthcoming cross-
government suicide strategy).
For recovery
• employment rates of people with
mental illness (outcome 2.5 of NHS
Outcomes Framework 11/12), IAPT
targets and shared objective 6 of
the mental health strategy1
)
• patient self-defined goals.
Also worth consideration are:
• the Mental Health Recovery Star,
a self-assessment tool that patients
can use with clinicians to chart their
own progress towards their self-
defined goals (see www.outcomesstar.
org.uk/mental-health/), and
• the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental
Well-being Scale (WEMWBS), a
scale for assessing positive mental
health (see www.healthscotland.com/
documents/1467.aspx).
For patient experience
• patient ratings of consultations
(relates to shared objective 4 of the
mental health strategy1
with a good
application to 360 Degree Appraisal
and, in time, medical revalidation).

What would a good primary mental health care service look like? (continued)
Innovative practice models
Karis Neighbour Scheme
www.karisneighbourscheme.org
Karis Neighbour Scheme has been
operating in Birmingham for over
12 years. A voluntary sector organisation,
it is underpinned by the belief that
spirituality is an important factor in
personal and community health. The
scheme seeks to meet a variety of unmet
needs, largely through volunteer support.
Partnership working with local services,
especially medical centres and faith based
organisations, is central to its work.
Karis Neighbour Scheme is guided by
Christian beliefs and principles; its directors
are Christian, as are many of the staff.
This motivates the organisation, but in
no way restricts its services to those who
share their faith. It has close links with
the community healthcare chaplains at a
local medical centre that is known for the
holistic health care it offers. Some of Karis
Neighbour Scheme’s programmes are joint
projects with local churches.
Karis Neighbour Scheme aims:
A to reduce isolation, promote
connectedness between people and
enhance community cohesion by:
• providing individual befrienders for
the isolated elderly, asylum seekers
and refugees
• organising community activities and
events that build relationships and create
a sense of community, including:
– day trips in the summer for young
families
– summer garden parties for the elderly
– Christmas festivities for the elderly
at residential homes and churches
– a personal faith discussion and
support group at a residential home
and community centre
– the annual Ladywood Community
Fun Day
– a community allotment project
– art and craft or language sessions
with free child care
– a community engagement project
(facilitated by The Nehemiah
Foundation – Training People to
Transform Communities www.
regenworker.com), which initially
conducted a detailed public health
analysis of the area, then worked
with local stakeholders to establish
priorities for action, and has now
set up a residence association and a
community newspaper.
B to improve mental health and ability to
cope with adversity, increase individuals’
sense of control and independence and
so reduce demand on services by:
• running drop-in advocacy sessions
offering help with welfare benefits,
utility bills, immigration and housing
issues
• practical support such as gardening,
decorating and supplying second-hand
furniture
• free English language classes for those
new to the UK
• accompanying individuals to
appointments with doctors, housing
or benefit agency appointments
• one-to-one counselling and groups
dealing with issues such as depression,
anxiety, self-esteem, anger management
and confidence building
• working with families and young people
to promote emotional health and reduce
family dysfunction.
Changing Minds
Education Centre
www.changingmindscentre.co.uk
Changing Minds Education Centre has
developed over a number of years. Its
work initially focused on primary care
medication, but it has expanded to
incorporate new ways of working and
new workers, including graduate workers
and community nurses trained in mental
health. Following an audit in 2005/06 and
in parallel with national initiatives such as
the National Service Framework (NSF)
for Mental Health and IAPT, the service
has developed to provide a stepped care
wellbeing service.

Changing Minds is now a practice-based
initiative with an early intervention and
recovery focus. It employs 37 full-time
equivalent staff. The service includes peer
support and a parent support service, in
addition to the following three projects.
• Changing Minds Wellbeing Teams
provide a person-centred service for
people in Northamptonshire who may
be at risk of, or who are experiencing,
a period of mental distress. Their aim
is to explain the information, resources
and support available and help people
make positive lifestyle changes to
improve their mental wellbeing.
• Learn2B is a partnership between
Changing Minds and the
Northamptonshire County Council
Adult Learning Service. The aim is
to enhance wellbeing through a range
of creative, social, recreational and
therapeutic groups for people in their
local communities. Currently 30 tutors
are running a variety of clinical/task
based/social interaction groups.
www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/
learning-for-life/
• PhyHWell (pronounced ’fuel’) is a two-
year pilot funded by Northamptonshire
Teaching PCT that aims to reduce
mortality rates among people with
severe mental illness, improve their
physical and emotional health, increase
their compliance with medication and
help develop their support networks.
It does this by improving skills in the
primary care workforce and promoting
data sharing and collaborative working.
It offers GP practices individual bespoke
training and, by inviting the practices’
link community mental health nurse to
participate, creates an opportunity to
improve links with the local community
mental health team. The project was the
winner of the Nursing in Practice Award
2010. www.changingmindscentre.
co.uk/v/phyhwell_project
Health and Wellbeing
Centre with Navigators
www.echwc.nhs.uk
Launched in December 2011, this is
a partnership between Turning Point,
the Terrence Higgins Trust, Greenbrook
Healthcare and NHS dentists. The health
and wellbeing centre is designed to offer
the community easy access to a range of
primary healthcare services co-located
under one roof. The building houses a
GP-led health centre, community sexual
health services and NHS dentistry, as
well as offering space for use by other
community groups.
The service operates at the interface
between primary and community services.
The reception is staffed by a team of
‘wellbeing navigators’ who, in addition to
dealing with patients’ health questions,
also deal with bookings for the community
room space for local organisations, make
links with other community hubs locally
and signpost to other sources of support
in the community. This navigator model
is based on a pilot project in Hartlepool,
evaluated by the University of Durham,
which successfully engaged people with
local health and wellbeing services.37
The partnership also plans to establish
a wellbeing navigator apprenticeship
scheme, which will recruit and train local
people who have used the navigator
service to work as navigators themselves.
This will both expand the existing
service and ensure its sustainability, and
establishing a systemic and structured
way to build on the strengths and
experiences of patients.

Supporting the delivery of the mental health strategy
The JCP-MH believes that
commissioning that leads to
good primary mental health
care, as described in this guide,
will support the delivery of the
mental health strategy1
in
a number of ways.
Shared objective 1:
More people will have
good mental health.
Prevention, risk stratification, and
early intervention in primary care
will result in fewer members of the
registered practice population developing
mental illness.
Shared objective 2:
More people with mental
health problems will recover.
More mental illness will be managed
in primary care, thereby reducing
admissions to secondary care. Patients
will enjoy increased agency, a better
quality of life, stronger social relationships,
a better chance of maintaining safe
and stable housing, and more
opportunities to participate in education
and gain employment.
Shared objective 3:
More people with mental
health problems will have
good physical health.
Co-morbidity of physical and mental illness
will be better addressed by collaborative
primary care delivered by multi-disciplinary
teams that give equal importance to
emotional, psychological and physical
health care needs.
Shared objective 4:
More people will have a positive
experience of care and support.
People with mental health problems prefer
to be treated in primary care wherever
possible, and say they prefer talking
therapies to other forms of treatment.
Shared objective 5:
Fewer people will suffer
avoidable harm.
Reducing the likelihood of admission
to hospital also reduces exposure to
avoidable harm.
Shared objective 6:
Fewer people will experience
stigma and discrimination.
People who are treated in primary care
are at less risk of losing their home and
more able to maintain their social networks
in their community. Friends and family
networks, education, employment and
a safe and stable place to live are central
to quality of life. Using primary care
services can avoid the stigma attached to
secondary mental health services.

Primary Mental Health Care
Expert Reference Group Members
• Helen Lester (ERG Chair)
Lead for Mental Health Commissioning
Royal College of General Practitioners
• Antonia Borneo
Policy Manager
Rethink Mental Illness
• Gillian Bowden
Consultant Psychologist
British Psychological Society (BPS)
• Jonathan Campion
Consultant Psychiatrist
South London and Maudsley
NHS Foundation Trust
• Neil Deuchar
Lead for Commissioning
Royal College of Psychiatrists
• Alan Farmer
Early Intervention Team
Worcestershire Health and Care
NHS Trust
• Chris Fear
2Gether NHS Foundation Trust
• Chris Fitch
Research and Policy Fellow
Royal College of Psychiatrists
• Diane French
Director of Performance and Quality
Richmond Fellowship
• Kate Glenholmes
Business Unit Lead
Worcestershire Health and Care
NHS Trust
• Jacky Hammond
Director of Operations
MCCH
• Simon Lennane
General Practitioner
Alton St. GP Surgery, Ross-on-Wye
• Kieron Murphy
Director of Delivery
for Mental Health
• Zelda Peters
Director for Mental Health Services
Turning Point
• Paul Sigel
Head of Primary Care Psychology
City and Hackney Primary Care Trust
Acknowledgements
We would also like to thank the Forum for Mental Health
in Primary Care and the team of National Advisers from the
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.
Development process
This guide has been written by a group
of primary mental health care experts,
in consultation with patients and carers.
Each member of the Joint Commissioning
Panel for Mental Health received drafts
of the guide for review and revision, and
advice was sought from external partner
organisations and individual experts.
Final revisions to the guide were made by
the Chair of the Expert Reference Group
in collaboration with the JCP’s Editorial
Board (comprised of the two co-chairs of
the JCP-MH, one user representative,
one carer representative, and technical
and project management support staff).

Resources
for Mental Health
http://www.jcpmh.info
The JCP-MH is a collaboration between
leading organisations with an interest in
mental health and learning disabilities.
Its aim is to achieve better outcomes for
patients by improving commissioning of
services that meet patient need. It does
this by:
• publishing briefings on the key
values and principles for effective
mental health commissioning
• providing practical guidance and
a framework for mental health
commissioning
• supporting commissioners in
commissioning mental health care that
delivers the best possible outcomes for
health and well being
• developing guidance for best practice
commissioning in areas where disparities
in outcomes exist
• bringing together carers, service
users, clinicians, commissioners,
managers and others to deliver the
best possible commissioning for
mental health and wellbeing.
Wandsworth Community
Empowerment Network
www.wcen.info
WCEN is a community based charity
established as part of the National Strategy
for Neighbourhood Renewal and based on
the Doddington and Rollo estate in North
Battersea. WCEN works with the poorest
and most disadvantaged communities
and people living in Wandsworth and
surrounding boroughs. Its core mission
is to link the issues and concerns of
local people and communities with the
organisations and public agencies that
may be able to do something about them.
Foundation for Positive Mental Health
www.foundationforpositive
mentalhealth.com
The Foundation for Positive Mental Health
promotes Positive Mental Training through
research, professional training and raising
public awareness. It works with health
care organisations and with businesses.
Positive Mental Training is offered through
the NHS in Edinburgh as part of a stepped
care approach to treat anxiety, and is also
offered by NHS primary care services in
Halton and St Helens, Sandwell & Dudley
and Eden Valley.
National Debtline and
the Money Advice Service
www.nationaldebtline.co.uk
www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk
National Debtline provides a national
telephone helpline for people with debt
problems in England, Wales and Scotland.
The service is free, confidential and
independent (0808 808 4000; Monday–
Friday 9am–9pm; Saturday 9.30am–1pm).
The Money Advice Service provides free,
unbiased advice nationwide to anyone
seeking help to manage their money. The
service is available online and over the
phone on 0300 500 5000, Monday to
Friday 8am–8pm.
Primary Care Mental Health
and Education
http://primhe.ning.com
PRIMHE aims to promote and improve
understanding, skills and knowledge of
primary care practitioners to work with
people in distress, with and without a
formal diagnosis of a mental illness.
Useful publications/weblinks
Haddad, M., Buszewicz, M. and
Murphy, B. Supporting people with anxiety
and depression: a guide for practice
nurses. London: Mind. www.mind.org.
uk/assets/0001/4765/MIND_ProCEED_
Training_Pack.pdf
NICE pathways: depression.
http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/
depression
NICE cost impact and commissioning
assessment: quality standard for
depression in adults.
www.nice.org.uk/media/01D/C3/
DepressionQSCostAssessment.pdf

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A large print version of this document is available from
www.jcpmh.info
Published February 2013
Produced by Raffertys

Guidance for commissioners of primary mental health services

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