September 2010 – Policy on Social Work in Multi Disciplinary Mental Health Teams – executive summary

A series of consultation events, combined with a literature search found the following:

• The concept of integration and the actual degree of integration varies across the country
• Multi disciplinary mental health teams improve services to people who use mental health services when there are clearly defined professional roles and good quality professional support for each professional speciality
• Whilst there were examples of good integrated practice, where the social work role is valued and supported, there were numerous examples of poor practice
• That the recent introduction of Payment by Results (PbR) is having a profound impact on social work, with strong evidence of services being disaggregated as a result of its introduction
• There are fears that the anticipated budget cuts in adult social care may target multi disciplinary working, partnerships and integrated working. This will lead to a loss of the social care perspective, which will reduce the quality of services that service users and carers receive
• There are significant concerns about the impact of the Health White Paper on multi disciplinary and partnership working