What is it about?
The article explains the work of Approved Mental Health Professionals when they are assessing a person in a mental health crisis, with a mental health condition e.g. acute depression and suicidal ideas, for a psychiatric hospital stay. It discusses the difficulties in securing a psychiatric bed and some of the difficult working practices they experience with psychiatrists. It analyses how AMHPs routinely work in ways that they themselves consider foolish and a 'waste of time' showing the inefficiencies on mental health AMHP practice in England and Wales.
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Why is it important?
It is a novel article that explores the impact on AMHPs everyday working practices and it offers opportunity to consider how such practices can be improved to improve the experiences and outcomes for people who are assessed and treated under the Mental Health Act 1983.
Perspectives
As a previous AMHP and a manager of community mental health service I witnessed inefficiencies in working practices and the resultant poor experiences of people with severe mental health problems. The article offers a perspective on what working as an AMHP is actually like and how AMHP practice and Mental Health Act assessments could be improved.
Caroline Leah
Manchester Metropolitan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Role of the Approved Mental Health Professional: A ‘Fool’s Errand’?, The British Journal of Social Work, April 2022, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bcac059.
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