Mental Health Implementation Network
The Mental Health Implementation Network (MHIN) aims to drive national collaborations and changes in mental health practice and is funded by the NIHR.
The Network is a collaboration of service users, local communities, health and care providers, commissioners and a range of regional and national stakeholders, including charities and local government. It is led by NIHR ARC South London, working closely with NIHR ARC East of England as well as the other 13 ARCs nationally.
The Mental Health Implementation Network will engage with service users, local communities, health and care providers, commissioners and a wide range of regional and national stakeholders to deliver evidence-based service change.
Projects will work to improve mental health across the life course by catalysing and evaluating high impact interventions at key stages in regional and national services.
Aims
The network’s objectives are to:
- Create a national collaboration between key multidisciplinary stakeholders across government, health services, the third sector, universities, Applied Research Collaborations, Academic Health Science Networks, and service users and the public, to work together to catalyse implementation of effective mental health interventions
- Work together to identify and prioritise areas of mental health services that require improvement to meet individual and system needs
- Identify evidence-based solutions to maximise the relevance and impact of the interventions at a population and individual level
- Identify and agree the best methods for implementing the required evidence-based solutions and to test how they can be put into practice in a range of services across the Applied Research Collaborations and Academic Health Science Networks
- Evaluate the impact of implementing mental health interventions using state of the art research methods
Impact
The MHIN launched a scoping exercise in April 2021 to identify specific areas of mental health care in England where there is a high level of unmet need, and which could be addressed through existing evidence-based solutions at scale. There was an excellent response to the scoping exercise, with mental health trusts, charities, social and educational services, and research organisations, helping to identify more than 90 mental health needs in England.
MHIN researchers then aligned these needs with those identified by other studies in England since 2015 and a review of national policy documents. Using this approach, the researchers have identified seven broad areas of mental health need and their accompanying solutions in England:
- Children and young people
- Comorbidities
- Inequalities
- Mental health systems strengthening
- Talking therapies
- Suicide / self-harm
- Severe mental illness
Working under the seven areas, the researchers then identified 22 mental health solutions that meet the needs of patients and health systems, may be ready for implementation, and are supported by evidence of effectiveness, including NICE guidance.
Principal Investigator
Senior Clinical Lecturer in Applied Mental Health Research, Newcastle University