Issues in Acute Care: Mental Health - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Best practice in collaboration should be based on building a trusting, open relationship between service user, caregiver and service provider. Furthermore, this should incorporate building service users' strengths and developing coping strategies which are all underpinned by the recovery approach. These approaches should all be based on knowledge of the individual service user and applying evidence-based research to enhance a positive outcome. This essay will discuss the contributions to a client's recovery of utilising a collaborative approach to assessment within an acute ward.Recovery is a very unique, personal experience which sees service users tackling and adapting to mental illness. By giving service users access to key helpers, factors (i.e. psychotherapy, medication, focus groups and peer support) aids recovery and give a sense of optimism and hope for the future.
In clinical practice, acute care is viewed as a one-stop-shop where radical life-saving interventions are implemented in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment and where a crisis is established. In contrast to this, acute care in psychiatry is viewed as the poor relation where service users find themselves being failed by a service that itself is in a state of crisis. Furthermore, because psychiatry relies heavily on the medical model, other recognised interventions are not being offered. Psychiatric services seem on the surface to be radical or time-consuming. However, if clinical services find the time to offer the more radical interventions, why cant psychiatry Subsequently, service users find themselves in a revolving door situation, where for a short time they are in recovery, but because alternative interventions are not offered, they find life stressors activating their mental illness. So if other interventions have been developed and are proven to have positive results in relation to managing mental illness, why do service providers feel they cannot offer them to users
What is New Is Really Old
Collaboration and recovery seem to be the new words in mental health services with the new Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 being re-written and the rights, relationship and recovery (2006) documents being recognised by parliament. However, just how radical are these new polices Looking back at psychiatric services through the last 150 years you can see how the new really has its roots in the very early framework of psychiatry; indeed, when it comes to psychiatry the statement 'everything changes and yet everything remains the same' seems very fitting. Smoyak (2007) suggests the term 'what is old is really new' in relation to modern psychiatry.
Indeed, many people view concepts such as recovery and patient-centred care as modern, however they very much have their roots in the past. Smoyak (2007) highlights that care was largely based on humane, moral treatment principles, and lengths of stay were far shorter than in the 20th Century. Indeed the shift towards intensive home treatment teams in today's psychiatric services would suggest that there is a unified need for shorter or no admission to acute facilities. This in itself suggests what is old is really new and that, when asylums were at their height, they indeed recognised the very simple yet powerful focus on holistic care was at the heart of recovery.
Many people can contribute to clients' care in an acute crisis, even before admission to mental health facilities, GPs have an important role to play and are usually the first people that can assess a client who may have an on going mental health problem. However, Ruane (2004) found as a caregiver that GPs sometimes do not recognise the ...Download file to see next pages Read More