Our Sick Society Kings College London

Welcome to The Big Ideas, a podcast series exploring how data shapes our understanding of mental health and inequalities and how to make the collection and use of data more inclusive to inspire a more equitable future.

The podcast series is part of the Social and Economic Predictors of Severe Mental Disorders (SEP-MD) research project led by Dr Jayati Das-Munshi from King’s College London and affiliated with the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

In the launch episode, ‘Making the most of existing data’, host Milena Wuerth, Research Assistant, King’s College London is joined by Amelia Jewell, Research Informatics and Governance Lead for the Clinical Records Interactive Search (CRIS), South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, to discuss how data linkage can be like ‘patching the holes’; By linking mental health data with administrative datasets like census, the data starts to tell us about patterns of inequality in mental health. Amelia discusses some of the challenges of linking large-scale data and the importance of patient involvement in this so that data can be turned into a tool for change.

The Big Ideas was produced by Words of Colour: www.wordsofcolour.co.uk

The Big Ideas is a special 4-part series of Our Sick Society, a podcast where researchers from the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and people with lived experience explore together how social factors contribute to mental health problems. The podcast encourages listeners to think and question society’s role in mental health - what are the systems and the structures which mean that some people are more likely to become mentally unwell than others?

Welcome to The Big Ideas, a podcast series exploring how data shapes our understanding of health and inequalities and how to make the collection and use of data more inclusive to inspire a more equitable future.

The podcast series is part of the Social and Economic Predictors of Severe Mental Disorders (SEP-MD) research project led by Dr Jayati Das-Munshi from King’s College London and affiliated with the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

In this episode,‘Severe Mental Health Disorders: The initial findings’, host Milena Wuerth, Research Assistant, King’s College London is joined by Rosanna Hildersley, PhD student and Research Assistant on the SEPMD project and Dr. Lukasz Cybulski, Post Doctoral Researcher on the SEPMD project.

They provide an overview of the SEP-MD research project and discuss why we would want to link mental health records to administrative data like Census from England. Rosie discusses her project, which explores the association of urban areas with the onset of severe mental health conditions like psychosis. Lucasz discusses his work which has used the linkage to shed light on social outcomes in psychosis.

The Big Ideas was produced by Words of Colour: www.wordsofcolour.co.uk

The Big Ideas is a special 4-part series of Our Sick Society, a podcast where researchers from the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and people with lived experience explore together how social factors contribute to mental health problems. The podcast encourages listeners to think and question society’s role in mental health - what are the systems and the structures which mean that some people are more likely to become mentally unwell than others?

Welcome to The Big Ideas, a podcast series exploring how data shapes our understanding of health and inequalities and how to make the collection and use of data more inclusive to inspire a more equitable future.

The podcast series is part of the Social and Economic Predictors of Severe Mental Disorders (SEP-MD) research project led by Dr Jayati Das-Munshi from King’s College London and affiliated with the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

In this episode, ‘Tackling systemic mental health inequalities’, host Milena Wuerth, Research Assistant, King’s College London is joined by Annette Davis who is a carer and Chair for PCREF Carer and Service User Group, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to discuss ethnic inequalities that exist within mental health systems, and how this can be addressed through the patient and carer race equality framework (PCREF). Annette was involved in the service user and carer advisory group for SEP-MD. Annette reflects on how improved recording of ethnicity in health records is needed to improve mental health care provision. She also reflects on the challenges of tackling race equality in mental health care provision and the importance of involving service users and carers in this journey to tackle systems change.

The Big Ideas was produced by Words of Colour: www.wordsofcolour.co.uk

The Big Ideas is a special 4-part series of Our Sick Society, a podcast where researchers from the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and people with lived experience explore together how social factors contribute to mental health problems. The podcast encourages listeners to think and question society’s role in mental health - what are the systems and the structures which mean that some people are more likely to become mentally unwell than others?

Welcome to The Big Ideas, a podcast series exploring how data shapes our understanding of health and inequalities and how to make the collection and use of data more inclusive to inspire a more equitable future.

The podcast series is part of the Social and Economic Predictors of Severe Mental Disorders (SEP-MD) research project led by Dr Jayati Das-Munshi from King’s College London and affiliated with the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

In the final episode of the series, ‘Future possibilities of mental health data’, host Milena Wuerth, Research Assistant, King’s College London is joined by Principal Investigator on the project Dr Jayati Das-Munshi, Clinical Reader in Social & Psychiatric Epidemiology, King’s College London, and Robert Stewart, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology & Clinical Informatics, King's College London.

They explore how routine and linked data can be used to tackle and address mental health inequalities through informing policy, practical change and clinical interventions. They reflect on the future possibilities of linked health records data, to create health equity within systems.

The Big Ideas was produced by Words of Colour: www.wordsofcolour.co.uk

The Big Ideas is a special 4-part series of Our Sick Society. In this podcast, researchers from the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health and people with lived experience explore together how social factors contribute to mental health problems. The podcast encourages listeners to think and question society’s role in mental health - what are the systems and the structures which mean that some people are more likely to become mentally unwell than others?

Our Sick Society is taking a brief hiatus to explore ways to continue the series, and we would really like your help.

Below is a link to a short feedback survey where you can tell what you liked, what you didn’t, and what topics you think we should cover in future episodes.

You can also enter a prize draw to win one of two £50 Love 2 Shop vouchers.

Enter here: https://bit.ly/OSS-Survey

In 2014 the UN Convention on the Rights of Person’s with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recommended that policymakers and psychiatrists should “review the laws allowing for guardianship and trusteeship, and take action to develop laws and policies to replace regimes of substitute decision-making by supported decision-making, which respects the person’s autonomy, will and preferences”. These stipulations mean the disbandment of involuntary and assisted care, which are two forms of care that are conventionally used to treat people with lost mental capacity. Involuntary care specifically refers to when someone is treated without their consent, towards the restoration of their autonomy and in the interest of their and others safety . The UNCRPD's stipulations, on the other hand, mean a shift in focus to provision that ensures relational and environmental supports for people with psychosocial conditions who are in crisis, instead of treatment against the person's will.

The sentiments of GC1 have been met with caution and sometimes contention, and remain important to policy in UN signatories.

To explore some of the complexities of this debate, Alex Freeman interviews Charlene Sunkel, and Prof. George Szmukler - both experts in the field and human rights activists with different experiences and insightful perspectives towards involuntary care and psychiatric provision.

For more information about the Global Mental Health Peer Network, visit: https://www.gmhpn.org/

You can download the transcript for this episode here:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/csmh/assets/oss-transcripts/oss-transcript-episode-15.pdf