A year ago I blogged about the new mental health commissioning guides that the Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health (JCP-MH) had published for GPs.

The JCP-MH is a collaboration between public sector organisations, charities and professional bodies. Their aim is to “inspire commissioners to improve mental health and wellbeing, using a values based commissioning model”.

There’s a huge amount of jargon in the world of healthcare commissioning, so it’s sometimes tricky to get a clear picture about all of the available resources. The JCP-MH are doing their best to cut through this technical terminology by producing a series of guides that describe what good services look like. The guides summarise the best available evidence and present case studies of best practice.

New guides worth reading are:

1. Guidance for commissioning public mental health services (PDF), Dec 2012.
   This guide is about the commissioning of public mental health interventions to reduce the burden of mental disorder, enhance mental wellbeing, and support the delivery of a broad range of outcomes relating to health, education and employment.
2. Guidance for commissioners of perinatal mental health services (PDF), Nov 2012.
   This guide is about the commissioning of good quality perinatal mental health services. It does not cover the provision of care of postpartum women and their infants by drug and alcohol services or learning disability services.
3. Guidance for commissioners of rehabilitation services for people with complex mental health needs (PDF), Nov 2012.
   This guide is about the commissioning of good quality mental health interventions and services for people with complex and longer term problems to support them in their recovery.

Other guides still available are:

1. Primary mental health care services (PDF)
2. Child and adolescent mental health service transitions (PDF)
3. Dementia services (PDF)
4. Acute liaison services (PDF)

And if that’s not enough for you, there are more relevant publications from elsewhere worth checking out:

• Practical mental health commissioning: A framework for local authority and NHS commissioners of mental health and wellbeing services.
  A great place to start if you want to find out about the changing commissioning environment and how commissioners can make the most of available resources to improve the quality and outcomes of mental health and social care services in their area.
• Cases for change: commissioning tools.
• Everyone counts: planning for patients 2013/14 (PDF). NHS Commissioning Board, Dec 2012.

If you are working in mental health commissioning or if you simply want to find out more about how this work area is changing as we get closer to the April 1st changeover, check out the Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health website and download some of these guides to good services.