Chair:
Baroness Molly Meacher, Chairman, East London and City University, Mental Health NHS Trust

FOR:
Dr Nick Temple, Chief Executive and Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
Stuart Bell, Chief Executive, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

AGAINST:
Dr Alan Cohen, Senior Fellow, Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and Senior Clinical Advisor in Primary Care, Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP)
Paul Farmer, Chief Executive, MIND

Biography: Dr Nick Temple

Dr Nick Temple is Chief Executive of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. He led the Trust in its successful application to become a foundation trust on 1 November 2006. He is also a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy and a psychoanalyst. He is a former chairman of the Faculty of Psychotherapy of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He has had a leading role in developing policy on the provision of psychotherapy and psychological treatments in the NHS. He was previously consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley and Kings College Hospital and senior tutor in psychotherapy at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is a previous consultant psychiatrist at the Portman Clinic.

He has clinical interests in psychosomatic illness, forensic psychotherapy and personality disorder.

Abstract

The present infrastructure and organization of the NHS is set up to provide a mental illness service, not a mental heath service. The bulk of resources are aimed at the treatment of severe mental illness. This is because of the pressing need to help and treat the small section of the population with severe mental illness. A radical shift in organization and investment would be required to move towards a mental health service which was aimed at early intervention to promote mental well-being and prevent mental illness.

Relatively limited resources have been devoted to Child and Adolescent Mental Health services which have a key preventative role and by supporting families to promote mental health. Even with the announcement of the funding of IAPT, a small scale of resources and infrastructure have been devoted to psychological therapies aimed a promoting mental health.

A larger scale of new resources and infrastructure will be required to address mental well-being and this will require a radically different approach to mental health services.

Biography: Dr Alan Cohen

Dr Alan Cohen was a GP principal for 20 years in Mitcham, South London. In that time the practice developed from a three partner practice with 6000 patients, to a five partner training and teaching practice working from new cost rent premises with 10,000 patients. Dr Cohen for seven years, was the only trainer in the practice, and made links with the local medical school and with the FHSA (as was!) . He was chair of the MAAG, and later chair of the Primary Care Group.

In April 2004, he left the practice as a principal to join Kensington and Chelsea PCT as Clinical Director. From 2005 he was appointed as senior primary care advisor to CSIP. CSIP is part of the Department of Health, and is responsible for service improvement and policy development for the “care services” i.e. mental health, older people and children’s health, people with learning and/or physical disabilities, and social care.

Dr Cohen also works as Senior Fellow at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, a national mental health charitable trust, and chaired the London Development Centre for Mental Health, one of the eight regional development centres of the National Institute of Mental Health in England (NIMHE) up until 2006.

Dr Cohen maintains his clinical skills working as a GP consultant in a practice in Wimbledon. Clinical work undertaken includes routine sessions, and also providing advice to other clinicians in the team on managing patients with complex mental health problems.