Manx Care is piloting a ‘Mental Health First Contact Practitioner’ service in two GP Practices over 12 months.
Peel Medical Practice and Southern Group Practice are the pilot locations for the new service.
The service which is in partnership with the Primary Care Network, aims of improving access to mental health services for patients experiencing mental health problems.
Mental Health Practitioner
First Contact Practitioners can offer specialist mental health advice and provide expert clinical care, ensuring that individuals experiencing mental health problems do not fall between gaps in services.
They can undertake triage and assessments, enabling access to a range of appropriate mental health support across the community system.
The practitioners will also ensure that, once assessed, each person receives the best possible care in the right place and at the right time, by the right supporting service.
This may include the provision of brief, short-term psychological interventions as appropriate.
Once the pilot has been fully assessed, consideration will be given to rolling this out further across the island.
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