This book looks at the knowledge, skills and competences needed by those in clinical practice who work with patients with a mental ill health, poor wellbeing or a mental health diagnosis outside of specialist mental health services. This book focuses throughout on ideas around person-centred care, shared decision making and therapeutical relationships within mental health. It provides the framework of the mental/physical health divide, discusses common mental health illnesses, guidance for working in different environments, communication strategies, the basics of pharmacology and non-pharmacological treatment options and risk assessments and risk management. It also considers the challenges of working with people who have concurrent adult health and mental health ill health and of managing risk in nonspecific environments including self-harm and suicide. 

This book has been designed for professionals across the field of health including nurses, nurse associates, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, prosthetics and orthotists, student healthcare workers and other healthcare workers. It has been written to provide support to those with limited or no specialist mental health training. It aims to help to close the knowledge gap with professionals who have limited experience or training in the field of mental health or for those with previous limited exposure to patients with these diagnoses. Limited written text in this field has been completed to date, and this book has been designed to help fill this gap.

The book has been designed into ten main chapters, and provides research, case studies and models to support the development of confidence and knowledge within professionals. It is structured to allow opportunity to reflect on experiences to date, with opportunity throughout to pause and think, and to practice skills in carefully written case studies and examples.

Rachel Bage has been a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lincoln since 2019, in the UK. She works mainly on the BSc Nursing Course, across adult, child and mental health nursing students. She additionally has experience authoring for UDOL on a Prosthetic and Orthotic BSc course and associate lecturing at the Open University. She is a Mental Health Nurse by background with experience working across mental health/physical health, specifically in liaison services and in-reach services across the East Midlands. Working in this field, she identified the lack of confidence around working with patients with a mental health diagnosis in acute adult settings. She was also a successful graduate of the award-winning NHS Graduate Management Scheme in 2019. Rachel has a MSc in Integrative Health and Social Care, PGDip in Healthcare Leadership and a PGCert in Teaching. Rachel’s research interests are around the relationship between physical and mental health, wellbeing, and wellbeing within primary settings.