NIMHE Eastern provides operational support to two programmes of work linked to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The focus for this work is the secondment of the previous Regional Director John Mahoney to work full-time for WHO’s global mental health programme in Geneva and the part-time secondment of Programme Director, Susannah Rix to the Department of Health as UK National Counterpart for Mental Health to WHO in Europe.

Support to Global Mental Health Programme, WHO Geneva

Since 2003 the team have supported work to develop a national mental health policy and service development work in the West Bank and Gaza. John Jenkins, John Mahoney and Susannah Rix were closely involved in drafting a National Mental Health Policy for Palestine which was signed by the Palestinian Health Minister in February 2004. Paul O’Halloran has also been involved in devloping a training and development strategy for current and future mental health practitioners.

Following the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, John Mahoney was asked by WHO to lead the mental health and psychosocial programme in Sri Lanka. Arriving in early January 2005, John
Mahoney was involved in formulating an emergency mental health and psychosocial strategy which included the recruitment of over 500 Community Support Officers across Sri Lanka.
Over the next eight months a team from WHO led by John Mahoney has worked with the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka to develop a National Mental Health Policy for Sri Lanka, the first national policy for any secondary care health service. The policy and associated action plan which have been approved by the Sri Lankan Minister of Health, set out a programme to establish community mental health services across the country and to close three large psychiatric hospitals in Colombo with over 3,000 beds.

The achievements of the mental health programme in Sri Lanka was featured in an article on BBC News in December 2005.

John Mahoney, Susannah Rix and John Jenkins are also members of an international taskforce recently convened by Dr. Benedetto Saraceno, Director of the Division of Mental Health and Substance Misuse at WHO in Geneva to establish a Global Forum for Community Mental Health.

Mental Health Work in Europe

An official associated event on ‘Mental Health Inequalities’ will be held at Stansted Airport in November 2005 as part of the UK Presidency of the European Union. NIMHE Eastern provided operational support to the organisation of this event. A published account of the two days has been published by the Department of Health as part of the work of the UK Presidency of the European Union.

A programme of work is being developed as part of the action plan to implement the WHO European Ministerial Declaration on Mental Health which was signed by Ministers from 52 Member States across Europe in Helsinki in January 2005. Other work later this year will include input to consultation on a Mental Health Green Paper to be published by the European Commission in October 2005.

In 2003 – 2004 John Mahoney and Susannah Rix assisted in an evaluation of the Mental Health Programme at the WHO Regional Office for Europe based in Copenhagen.
NIMHE Eastern is also linked through the Whole Life Programme with a network of ‘leading experiences’ in community mental health across Europe.

The team at NIMHE Eastern have hosted a variety of visits to the UK from colleagues from Sri Lanka, Palestine, France, Italy, Albania and Norway. In July 2005 the team facilitated the involvement of mental health services in North Essex and Suffolk in a television programme on mental health in Europe.

The team have supported the involvement of independent consultants and staff from mental health services in Eastern Region and other areas to provide training and development support in Palestine, Albania, Sri Lanka and other countries.

NIMHE Eastern has also supported regional participation in the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL) which supports exchanges and partnerships between senior staff in statutory and non-statutory organisations in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

Key Contacts:

Susannah Rix, Programme Director/UK National Counterpart for Mental Health to WHO

John Mahoney, WHO Geneva