If GPs are to Avert a Mental Health Crisis we need to Streamline Care Provision

If GPs are to Avert a Mental Health Crisis we need to Streamline Care Provision

In the UK we are seeing a steady decline in COVID-19 threat levels, and semblances of normality are returning to our lives. However as one public health crisis wanes, another is gathering pace. 

Medical professionals and charities are warning that the NHS could soon be overwhelmed by a ‘tsunami’ of mental health emergencies, with prolonged isolation, backlogs in referrals and the impact of suspended treatments expected to reach crisis point by autumn. As a recent report from The King’s Fund and Centre for Mental Health recognises, urgent improvements to primary care are needed in order to service increasing demand. With GPs acting as the first point of contact for most mental health patients, streamlining and unifying access to services is one way to speed up care and help primary care teams guard against a serious mental health epidemic.

In a recent survey carried out by the charity Rethink Mental Illness, over three-quarters of respondents said that their mental health had gotten worse or much worse as a result of the pandemic, with isolation, unemployment and bereavement acting as major triggers for sufferers. 42% said that their mental health had worsened because they were getting less support from mental health services, with NHS resources rerouted to the frontline COVID-19 response and much face-to-face support suspended. Now that restrictions are easing, we must overhaul our approach to mental health care provision to present a united front: one that is equipped to deliver care quickly and efficiently, and leverages all the expertise at General Practice’s disposal.

Currently, mental health support is distributed across numerous community providers, charities, GPs and hospitals. A patient’s journey through the system is often non-linear, multifaceted and difficult to track. One way to streamline often fragmented care pathways is to unify GPs and mental health services with better channels of communication. This will speed up care provision and ensure no patient falls through the net. GPs need immediate access to local mental health specialists so they can direct patients to the correct service efficiently. Technology can help.

Single Points of Access – 24/7 telephone lines connecting GPs with mental health services – are already up and running across the UK. But we can go one step further to iron out the inefficiencies in the system that are slowing down mental health care at a time when it needs to be speeding up. Cinapsis’ SmartReferrals platform, for example, not only facilitates proactive discussion and knowledge sharing between GPs and local mental health teams, but also records all communication and uploads them to a patient’s medical record so that disjointed mental health pathways become streamlined, integrated and carefully tracked.

We know that keeping mental health patients out of hospital with quick access to care makes all the difference to outcomes. To ensure more care is delivered in communities, GPs must be armed with better tools to get patients to the right service quickly and monitor their movements through a complex system.

We have brilliant mental health services in our communities that can keep patients safe and healthy. But more must be done to iron out inefficiencies that maintain a disjointed system, rather than build a unified one. Stronger links between GPs and mental health teams will help, particularly as increased numbers of mental health patients come through General Practice following COVID delays.

Every patient must receive the care they need as quickly as possible. As The King’s Fund’s report has highlighted, this has to be an urgent priority if primary care teams are to help avert a mental health crisis before the year is out.

By Dr Owain Rhys Hughes, former surgeon and CEO and founder of Cinapsis