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Focus on patients’ lifestyle, mental health nurses urged |
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Mental health nurses should do more to help psychiatric patients lead healthier lifestyles, the Government’s chief nursing officer said today.
In a consultation paper on the reform of mental health nursing, Christine Beasley said the profession should do more to tackle the poor physical health of mentally ill patients.
She said mental health nurses needed to find more effective ways of improving their patients’ physical wellbeing, for example, by tackling the high rate of smoking among those with severe mental illnesses and helping people to prevent relapse by teaching them stress management techniques.
Ms Beasley said there was currently “little evidence” that mental health nurses were addressing service users’ physical health needs.
Following the publication of the Government’s white paper on public health, there was now greater impetus for mental health nurses to help service users make healthier lifestyle choices, such as offering advice on diet, exercise and alcohol and drug use, she said. The review, which is out for consultation until October, also suggests that mental health nurses provide psychological therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, to patients that involve service users more in planning their own care. It will also consider ways to improve the recruitment and retention of psychiatric nurses.
Sophie Corlett, the Director of Policy at the mental health charity Mind, said: “We are pleased to see the chief nursing officer’s review tackling areas about which we have felt concerned for some time.
“The review looks set to address the quality of services for people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups, provision of psychological therapies, choice in secure environments and active involvement in care planning.
“Ensuring the encouragement and development of relationships between service users and nurses has to be a major priority for this consultation, as positive engagement between the two groups is of prime importance in care and recovery.”
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