Andre Tomlin

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André Tomlin is an Information Scientist with 20 years experience working in evidence-based healthcare. He's worked in the NHS, for Oxford University and since 2002 as Managing Director of Minervation Ltd, a consultancy company who do clever digital stuff for charities, universities and the public sector. Most recently André has been the driving force behind the Mental Elf and the National Elf Service; an innovative digital platform that helps professionals keep up to date with simple, clear and engaging summaries of evidence-based research. André is a Trustee at the Centre for Mental Health and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London Division of Psychiatry. He lives in Bristol, surrounded by dogs, elflings and lots of woodland!

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WHO guidelines for mental, neurological and substance use disorders in low- and middle-income countries

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The World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) aims to tackle mental, neurological and substance use disorders in low- and middle-income countries. 14% of the global burden of disease is made up by these disorders and many people do not have access to the treatments they need. The programme asserts that with proper [read the full story…]

Lifestyle education can help people with diabetes and schizophrenia lose weight, according to new systematic review

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For many different reasons, people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders have a greater risk of type 2 diabetes.  The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in people with schizophrenia is twice that of the general population. This review looked for evidence of the efficacy of interventions to help people with schizophrenia manage their diabetes. Clinical question [read the full story…]

Rethinking physical activity for depression: what’s cost effective?

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Exercise is a good thing right? It seems obvious that people who are affected by mental health problems would benefit from getting themselves outside and becoming more active, but are these ‘treatments’ value for money when they are delivered in a structured way? The current NICE depression guideline recommends ‘structured’ physical activity programmes for depression [read the full story…]

New expert reviews on research methods from the NIHR School for Social Care Research

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The recent focus on mindfulness should not be limited to the general population or a privileged few but accessible and relevant to parents of children with disability

Frequent readers won’t be surprised to read we are always keen to support improvements in the quality of research. One of the clarion calls of many systematic reviews is for better quality studies to increase the numbers of trials that meet inclusion criteria. It was with great interest therefore that we read of the commissioning [read the full story…]

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One third of adults using secondary mental health services are not living in settled accommodation

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Those of you who like nothing more than to pour over spreadsheets full of social care and mental health statistics (you know who you are) may shed a tear today, as it sees the final publication of the Social Care and Mental Health Indicators from the National Indicator set, which is soon to be replaced [read the full story…]

New expert reviews on research methods from the NIHR School for Social Care Research

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Frequent readers won’t be surprised to read that us elves are always keen to support improvements in the quality of research. One of the clarion calls of many systematic reviews is for better quality studies to increase the numbers of trials that meet inclusion criteria. It was with great interest therefore that we read of [read the full story…]

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See how the NHS is performing locally and regionally on the Indictor Portal

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The NHS Indicator Portal is a website that provides access to hundreds of health indicators including: Compendium of Population Health Indicators A wide-ranging collection of over 300 indicators designed to provide a comprehensive overview of population health at a national, regional and local level. These indicators were previously available on the Clinical and Health Outcomes [read the full story…]

Can pregnant women with depression take SSRI antidepressants without harming their unborn baby?

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People who take psychiatric drugs are well aware of the daily trade-off between the benefits and the harms of their medication. This is a key consideration for pregnant women with depression, who don’t just have to consider the side effects that may strike them, but also the impact they may have on their unborn child. [read the full story…]

Psychiatric drugs make up a bigger proportion of all prescription costs than they did a decade ago

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Studies in which no placebo condition was included, resulted in a small but significant difference in favour of pharmacotherapy.

There continues to be a considerable amount of debate about the amount of psychiatric medication that is prescribed and how much it costs. Statistics from a number of countries have shown that many classes of drugs are being prescribed more and more, including antidepressants, antipsychotics and stimulants. Of course, as populations grow, people live longer [read the full story…]

New government alcohol strategy seeks to tackle binge drinking

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The government have published their new alcohol strategy for the United Kingdom. The last few years has seen a fall in the number of alcohol-related deaths in many other countries, but the UK has bucked this trend and has seen a rise in deaths from liver disease and an increase in hospital admissions related to [read the full story…]