WHO/Europe is holding a webinar to launch a new policy brief designed to help countries strategically implement the delivery of mental health services in primary health-care (PHC) settings.
Challenges in access
Mental health significantly impacts our overall well-being, influencing physical health, social interactions and economic productivity. However, countries across the world continue to experience challenges in delivering high-quality mental health within people’s communities. Chief among the challenges is how to ensure timely and equitable access to mental health services. Many countries are seeing inordinately long wait times for these services, which can lead to worsening symptoms and prolonged suffering for people in need.
Many factors hinder access to mental health care, such as the severe shortage of specialized mental health professionals, especially psychiatrists and nurses; stigma related to mental health; and difficulty in navigating service pathways or finding hope of recovery within them. To address these challenges, countries have applied many different strategies, including scaling up the delivery of mental health care in PHC.
Improving access through PHC
WHO’s new policy brief “Scaling up mental health services within the primary health care approach: lessons from the WHO European Region” offers a framework for countries to expand the capacity of PHC services to support mental health. This framework consists of 4 main strategies:
- enhancing the mental health roles and tasks of PHC professionals;
- expanding PHC teams through the integration of trained mental health staff;
- strengthening linkages between PHC and specialist mental health settings; and
- promoting linkages between health and other sectors, such as education, employment, housing and social services.
The webinar will cover how these strategies have been used by countries and how countries can use these strategies going forward to improve access to mental health care.
WHO/Europe’s Mental Health Flagship and the WHO European Centre for Primary Health Care will support Member States in adapting these strategies, providing technical assistance and fostering partnerships to achieve community-based mental health care.
To register for the webinar, please use the following link: