New Script for Mental Health

Activists create artwork to represent connexion and community, key values underpinning a New Script for Mental Health.

A new review of existing studies, undertaken by University College London researchers, concludes that the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression, in particular low levels of serotonin, does not stand up to scrutiny.

Long Read article by Dr. Marco Ramos, medical historian and psychiatry resident at Yale University, in which he argues the decades of biological research haven’t improved diagnosis or treatment, and that should look to society, not to the brain.

How the Power Threat Meaning Framework sets the scene for grassroots-led mental health services:

In Part 1, Anne Darcy blogs about the potential of the power threat meaning framework, which recognises activism as a route to recovery.

in Part 2, Anne sets out her vision for transforming our mental health services, imagining what the power threat meaning framework could enable in the long term.

In Part 3, she considers the fundamental transformation of power relations required in order to build a new mental health system, based on an understanding that distress is most often a response to social inequality and power abuses.

Services and Mental Health

The British Medical Association condemns ‘astonishing’ £94 million three-year extension of Capita’s Primary Care Support England contract, once again highlighting systemic failures and the outsourcing of public services.

Health Minister Robin Swann announces plans to improve the review process for serious adverse incidents following an RQIA report which found that Serious Adverse incidents were ‘likely to be repeated’.

Two more GP practices, Priory and Springhill Surgeries, operating out of two locations in Hollywood and Bangor, are set to close in February 2023, unless GPs can be found to take them over.

Panorama Undercover : Britain’s Biggest GP Chain programme, link here

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

The World Health Organisation published a global report on the health of refugees and migrants highlighting issues like the impact of housing and living conditions and mental health.

Campaigners here call on GP bodies to intervene so all asylum seekers can register with a GP, as evidence emerges of serious trauma being caused by living conditions.