Mental Health: Policy, Assessment Procedures, and Care Delivery

This report provides a comprehensive overview of mental health, encompassing various crucial aspects. It begins by defining mental health and its significance, emphasizing its impact on individuals' emotional, psychological, and social well-being. The report then delves into contemporary health policy and legislation concerning mental health, exploring the Equality Act 2010, Human Rights Act 1998, Mental Health Act 2007, and Mental Capacity Act 2005, and their implications for service provision. Assessment procedures and care delivery are examined, with a focus on the benefits and drawbacks of goal setting for mental health users and the importance of care plans in ensuring continuity and quality of care. The report also discusses the recovery star as a tool for monitoring and assessing progress, the need for patient-specific care aligned with Bradshaw's taxonomy of needs, and the barriers to accessing mental health services, including financial and structural challenges. Finally, it underscores the importance of integrating legislation and policy to improve mental health services and the overall quality of life for individuals facing mental health challenges. The report uses relevant literature and research to support its findings.

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MENTAL HEALTH
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Mental Health
Mental health entails people’s psychological, social and emotional well-being. Typically,
it influences how people act, think and feel. Mental health is essential in aiding persons to make
choices, relate well with others and handle stress. Therefore, mental health is vital at each life
stage from childhood to adulthood. Mental health problems affect people’s mood, thinking, and
behavior. Additionally, mental health wellness ensures that people are productive hence realize
their maximum potential. It is imperative to maintain mental health at all times. This paper
critically evaluates contemporary health policy and legislation in regards to mental health.
Furthermore, it examines assessment procedures, care delivery, goal setting for mental health
users.
Setting particular goals aids in achieving success in any undertaking. Mental health users
are not exceptional hence need to set goals. On the contrary, setting objectives is both beneficial
and disadvantages. Setting goals ensures that there is constructive performance (Creek and
Lougher, 2011, 92). Generally, when people formulate goals it aids them in shaping performance
accordingly. It helps them have explicit visions in regards to what they want (Slade, 2010). The
setting of goals for mental health users makes sure that they become aware of weaknesses and
strengths. Similarly, they are then able to prioritize the issues that have to be sorted out.
On the other hand, the setting of goals creates unnecessary pressure that one is required to
achieve them. Moreover, this might bring depression and feelings of failure. The need to fulfill a
particular objective creates a sense of accomplishment. Therefore, failure to attain the objective
creates the feeling of self-doubt (Fernando, 2010, 34). In the same token, this feeling of self-
doubt leads to several mental related disorders.

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A care plan is an outline of specific actions by health experts to help patients improve
their medical conditions more so mental health concerns. Medical care plans are therefore
significant. They ensure continuity of medical care. Any care plan is a mode of conveying and
organizing different actions of medical experts. In case a patient needs to change the person
providing care, then an updated care plan is given to the new person hence ensuring continuity in
medical provision (Locke and Latham, 2013, 57). Care plans help to teach about documentation.
Appropriate care plans outline the observations to be made, actions to be carried out by a nurse
and the instructions to be given to family members if there is the need. Subsequently, medics
have to monitor the actual progress of their patients. Additionally, this can be done through
appropriate documentation.
Medical care plans are imperative in helping people who have mental concerns to
manage their specific conditions. The care plans aid people improve their health hence medical
costs for the mental illnesses reduce. Contemporary research reveals that whenever people
receive relevant recovery care they start utilizing services rarely. Additionally, this shows that
they are recovering hence the mental care plans are effective. For instance, in most cases when
persons with anxiety disorders receive psychological treatment and subsequent care then medical
visits and costs decline. In the same token, people who have efficient care plans recover faster
from mental issues in comparison to those who do not have.
On the contrary, developing medical care plans consumes time. Health specialists have to
evaluate the diverse mental health issues of patients before they formulate care plans which are
patient specific. In the same token, the formulation of care plans makes health practitioners
concentrate on the development of the care plans (Rogers and Pilgrim, 2014, 41). Nonetheless,

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they ought to focus on the actual delivery of care so as to help patients to recover faster from
mental illness.
Mental concerns like excessive stress and anxiety cause various problems like ulcers,
colitis and heart disease. Stress and anxiety also greatly reduce the effectiveness of people’s
immune system hence making them more vulnerable to different conditions (Collins, 2011, 27).
Mental problems increase the possibility of people making poor behavioral verdicts that can
eventually lead to other medical problems. Therefore, the use of an appropriate care plan for
mental issues can be helpful to evading such conditions.
Conventionally, recovery is the transformation of various aspects of a person’s life which
can make him or her lead a better life. Making changes is usually not easy however
comprehending how change works is helpful (Morgan and Goldston, 2013, 21). Most persons
recovering from mental illness find it useful to consider recovery as a journey which involves
various stages. Consequently, they find it helpful to consider in which phase they are in during
the recovery process (MacKeith et al., 2010, 18). Therefore, people utilize the recovery star to
determine these aspects.
The recovery star utilized by medical experts is important. It is usually designed for
adults who are managing mental health. Furthermore, it is helpful to people who are recovering
from mental disorders and illnesses. The recovery star entails ten key aspects. The aspects are
work, living skills, responsibilities, hope and trust, social networks and addictive behavior
(Dickens et al, 2012, 47). Furthermore, they entail self-care and physical health, self-esteem and
identity, and management of mental health. The recovery star is reinforced by a five-stage
procedure of the change model. The five-stage process involves stuck, acceptance of help,
learning, believing and self-reliance.

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The recovery star is being utilized as a contemporary tool to optimize personal recovery
and obtain essential information which can be used to develop a relevant care plan. Therefore,
the recovery star has become a conventional monitoring, assessment, and care development tool
within the clinical setting (MacKeith et al., 2010, 18). The recovery star is recommended by
health practitioners hence it has to be appropriately used to mitigate mental health concerns.
The recovery star is a valid way to help in managing mental health issues. It is an
outcomes measure that makes people who are utilizing diverse medical services to measure the
extent of their recovery progress. Furthermore, this is done with the help of mental health
experts. Persons who use the recovery star can set personal goals and evaluate in the course of
time their progress towards the attainment of the objectives (Beazley, 2011, 196). Moreover, it
helps people identify the support needed to make sure that they are making considerable
progress. However gradual the progress is, it encourages people that they are improving in terms
of their health.
The provision of mental health care ought to be patient-specific. Patient-specific means
focusing health care on the necessities of people. Similarly, a majority of people are not
comfortable with sitting back and letting medical practitioners do what they perceive to be best
for them. Nevertheless, they have personal views which outline their priorities and what is
important for them (Elliott, Huizinga and Menard, 2012, 77). Therefore, medical professionals
are required to be flexible to strive to fulfill patients’ needs. Furthermore, person-specific care
approach should be in correspondence to Bradshaw taxonomy of needs. Bradshaw outlined that
people’s necessities are classified into expressed, felt, comparative and normative needs.
A felt need is considered as what people desire. It is easily determined by inquiring
from probable service users what they would like to have. Consequently, an expressed necessity

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is typically considered to be a need that has not been met. There is the perception that a person
cannot demand something unless he or she feels the need (Rose et al, 2010, 18). On the other
hand, a comparative necessity is one in which is measurable as a result of reference to a user who
is already receiving a particular service. Moreover, people are said to be in comparative need if
they have worse or same characteristics as those receiving a particular service. Subsequently,
normative needs are professionally defined and have a knowledge base (Cohen and Cohen, 2013,
46). An appropriate standard is set by policymakers, social scientists, and professionals against
which the real standard is compared.
People experience various barriers when they try to seek and complete mental health
assessment. Financial issues make it difficult for people to be able to fulfill the mental health
recovery programs (Keyes, 2010, 59). Consequently, mental health structure barriers make
people be unable to effectively utilize the services provided. Mental health care services are
fragmented hence have become a major barrier to obtaining relevant treatment.
It is vital to incorporate legislation and policy in the provision of mental health services.
Integrating appropriate legislation like equality act 2010 and human rights act 1998 aids
improving people’s mental health by providing high-quality services (Hoffman and Rowe, 2010,
36). The above legislation ensures that patients’ health is upheld hence reducing stigma. Human
rights act 1998 provides that the rights of mentally ill persons have to be upheld even as they
receive clinical services. Consequently, equality act 2010 states that all mentally ill people
should receive care equally and according to their specific issues (Act, 2010, 14).
Subsequently, other important legislation is the Mental Health Act 2007 and Mental
Capacity Act of 2005. Mental Health Act 2007 creates a legal way of depriving people of their
liberty for their own good (Caplan, 2013, 73). Conversely, liberty deprivation ought to be in

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accordance to maintaining people’s interest and ensuring their safety during the provision of
mental health services.
In conclusion, appropriate mental health generally improves people’s life quality.
Whenever people are free of anxiety, depression, excessive worry and stress, addictions and
psychological problems, they become unable to live to their full potential. Traditionally, good
mental health strengthens people’s capability to have healthy relationships, make sound choices
and decisions, and handle natural challenges of life. Furthermore, it supports our ability to
discover and develop towards our potential.

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References
Act, E., 2010. Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act.
Beazley, P.I., 2011. The Recovery Star: is it a valid tool?. The Psychiatrist, 35(5), pp.196-197.
Caplan, G. ed., 2013. An approach to community mental health (Vol. 3). Routledge.
Cohen, P. and Cohen, J., 2013. Life values and adolescent mental health. Psychology Press.
Collins, P.Y., Patel, V., Joestl, S.S., March, D., Insel, T.R., Daar, A.S., Bordin, I.A., Costello,
E.J., Durkin, M., Fairburn, C. and Glass, R.I., 2011. Grand challenges in global mental
health. Nature, 475(7354), p.27.
Creek, J. and Lougher, L., 2011. Occupational therapy and mental health. Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Dickens, G., Weleminsky, J., Onifade, Y. and Sugarman, P., 2012. Recovery Star: validating
user recovery. The Psychiatrist Online, 36(2), pp.45-50.
Elliott, D.S., Huizinga, D. and Menard, S., 2012. Multiple problem youth: Delinquency,
substance use, and mental health problems. Springer Science & Business Media.
Fernando, S., 2010. Mental health, race and culture. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoffman, D. and Rowe, J.J., 2010. Human Rights in the UK: An Introduction to the Human
Rights Act 1998. Pearson Education.
Keyes, C.L., 2010. Flourishing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. eds., 2013. New developments in goal setting and task
performance. Routledge.
MacKeith, J., Burns, S., Facey, E. and Johnson, J., 2010. Mental Health Recovery Star:
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Morgan, W.P. and Goldston, S.E., 2013. Exercise and mental health. Taylor & Francis.

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Rogers, A. and Pilgrim, D., 2014. A sociology of mental health and illness. McGraw-Hill
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Rose, U., Zimmermann, L., Pfeifer, R., Unterbrink, T. and Bauer, J., 2010. Intention as an
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Slade, M., 2010. Mental illness and well-being: the central importance of positive psychology
and recovery approaches. BMC health services research, 10(1), p.26.