Primary Care Mental Health

A comprehensive guide to this emerging field, fully updated to cover clinical, policy, and practical issues with a user-centred approach.

Around ninety per cent of all patients with mental health problems are managed solely in primary care, including thirty-fifty per cent of all those with serious mental illness. Primary care plays an increasingly essential role in developing and delivering mental health services, and in the wellbeing of communities. In this book, internationally respected authors provide both a conceptual background and practical advice for primary care clinicians and specialist mental health professionals liaising with primary care. Clinical, policy and professional issues, such as working effectively at the interface between services, are addressed, with a key focus on patient and service user experience. Following the highly successful first edition, which was awarded first prize at the BMA Medical Book Awards in the category of Primary Health Care, this fully updated volume includes new chapters on mental health and long-term physical conditions, prison populations, improving access to care and public mental health.