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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Women who suffer physical and sexual abuse continue to report significant levels of PTSD well into older adulthood

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Women who have survived physical or sexual abuse may continue to experience post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health complaints well into later life, according to a new study published in the Journal of Women’s Health. Researchers from Connecticut conducted this systematic review which involved finding what they call ’empirical studies’ from the last [read the full story…]

Children of parents who commit suicide are more likely to commit suicide themselves

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Suicide is rarely far from the headlines these days, but the last week has seen a number of high profile stories in the mainstream media. First there was the tragic death of the much loved footballer Gary Speed, which has been followed by a huge amount of press coverage.  Then on Saturday The Sun newspaper [read the full story…]

How do personality traits affect our need for mental health treatment?

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This cross-sectional study conducted by researchers from VU University in Amsterdam investigated whether specific personality traits (such as neuroticism, conscientiousness and being open to experiences) are associated with an increased use of mental health services. The background to this study is the fact that there are now many safe and effective treatments available for depression [read the full story…]

The most effective treatments for preventing relapse in first episode psychosis: a new systematic review and meta-analysis

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Patients with first episode psychosis often relapse after initial remission, so it is perhaps surprising that treatment guidelines for the condition are generally based on poor quality evidence. Antipsychotic drugs are frequently discontinued, but clinicians don’t have ready access to information that shows how to determine which patients can be successfully tapered off of antipsychotic [read the full story…]

The Mental Elf is popular with a broad range of professions and it’s used most by nurses: results from our November poll

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I had a fantastic response to the November poll, so a big thanks to everyone who took the time to tell me what professional group you belong to. The Mental Elf is used most by mental health nurses who make up 21.9% of the total polled audience.  It’s also well used by patients (12.4%), students [read the full story…]

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Nurses ready to take on commissioning role, according to new NHS Alliance reports

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Unless policy-makers take active steps to ensure that the rhetoric of clinically-led commissioning reflects a multi-professional approach that put nurses at the heart of commissioning and delivery, the potential to improve health care for patients will not be realised, says Nurses in Commissioning Network. According to Involving Nurses in Commissioning: How to Get it Right [read the full story…]

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People with mental illness are still dying young and this is a violation of human rights, says new editorial

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People with serious mental illness are still living 15-20 years less than the rest of the population, according to a study from the Nordic countries. The study, published in the December issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, shows that the life expectancy gap has remained largely unchanged over the last 20 years, despite changes [read the full story…]

NHS publish latest version of the Mental Health Minimum Dataset

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This fifth annual report on NHS adult specialist mental health services in England and the people who use them covers five years with the most recent information for 2010/11. It covers hospital care and services delivered in the community. This year, for the first time, data from a small number of NHS funded independent sector [read the full story…]

The Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia is the best instrument for diagnosing depression in schizophrenia

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Depression can be difficult to detect and diagnose and this difficulty only increases when other mental health conditions are also present. This systematic review conducted by a team of researchers from Groningen in the Netherlands, set out to identify the best instrument for diagnosing depression in people with schizophrenia. Their concern was that some diagnostic [read the full story…]

Mental health commissioners and providers are not ready for payment by results, says new NHS review

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The NHS Confederation Mental Health Network have a published a review that discusses the readiness of mental health commissioners and providers to start working under the new Payment By Results system from April 2012. The review involved speaking to more than 100 people from mental health trusts, commissioners, the independent sector, local authorities and national [read the full story…]