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Promoting Mental Wellbeing and Health (Wales) Policy

Policy Statement

This policy shows how a care service (care home or domiciliary support) can promote the mental wellbeing of the people using the service and acts when it recognises that their mental health is suffering. It is written to reflect the concerns that people with mental health issues:

• often find it difficult to discuss how they are really feeling, when mentally unwell
• worry about being stigmatised if they admit to having a problem with their mental health
• find it difficult to obtain the care and support they need for their mental ill health.

The policy is written in line with the Regulated Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2017, particularly:

• Regulation 21, which sets the standards of care and support common to all people using services
• Regulation 33, Access to health and other services, which requires care providers to ensure that people’s medical and healthcare requirements are fully met.
• Regulation 34, which imposes a general requirement on all service providers to always have a sufficient number of suitably qualified, trained, skilled, competent and experienced staff on duty to provide necessary care.

The service recognises that failure to meet any of the standards reflected in these regulations are likely to have adverse effects on people’s mental health. Success in helping people using the service to achieve the outcomes they seek will enhance their wellbeing.

The service also recognises that mental wellbeing should be thoroughly assessed as an integral part of any comprehensive assessment of needs, which it is required to carry out, to provide suitable and responsive care and support.

By assessing a person’s mental wellbeing with their full participation {{org_field_name}} can then include in its care and support plans strategies to help them think more positively about themselves, think more clearly, become more independent and more in control of their lives.

{{org_field_name}} recognises that usually good physical health and mental health go hand in hand. Physical ill health can affect mental health and mental wellbeing will affect physical health.

Approach

{{org_field_name}} promotes the mental wellbeing and addresses the mental health needs of the people using its services in person-centred ways, seeking and obtaining the facilities and resources and professional help for individuals as they need them.

It develops its approach with reference to national guidance reflected in the Wales strategy for mental health Working Together and National Institute for Clinical and Care Excellence guidance and quality standards for maintaining and improving mental wellbeing. These include:

• CG123: Common Health Problems: Identification and Pathways to Care (2011)
• NG32: Older People: Independence and Mental Wellbeing (2015)
• QS137: Mental Wellbeing and Independence for Older People (2016)
• QS50: Mental Wellbeing of Older People in Care Homes (2013)
• PH16: Mental Wellbeing in Over 65s: Occupational Therapy and Physical Activity Interventions (2008).

{{org_field_name}} will adopt one or more of the following methods as applicable to the situation and needs of the people using the service.

• Provide, enable or recommend opportunities for taking part in meaningful activities that could improve their health and mental wellbeing; including individual and group activities, opportunities to follow personal interests and to socialise, etc.
• Help to maintain and develop personal identity with the appropriate facilities and resources particularly where there is the risk of loss of personality because of dementia or physical impairments from strokes or illnesses. Examples include enabling: personal life reviews, taking part in reminiscence and recall activities, discussion on topics of interest, encouraging creative and artistic interests and carrying out familiar tasks and routines valued by the person.
• Give special attention through the offering of appropriate support and risk assessments when people have recently suffered significant life changes which are likely to have adverse effects on their mental health and wellbeing such as:
  • admission to a care home or hospital
  • separation
  • loss and bereavement
  • personal and family stress
  • inactivity through illness, including the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic
  • loss of employment and of valued activities and interests
  • financial difficulties and worries.
• Ensure that staff can recognise, record and report the symptoms and signs of mental health conditions and changes in mental wellbeing so that suitable help and support can be sought and obtained, for example, from medical practitioners and local mental health services.
• Have access to trained professionals to assess mental health needs, and where necessary to diagnose any mental illness or disorders, which might require statutory intervention.
• Ensure that the mental wellbeing of people using the service who have sensory impairments, and those with physical illnesses and long-term conditions, including those recovering from strokes and similar trauma is thoroughly assessed and responded to in the knowledge that these impairments can have adverse effects on mental health and wellbeing.
• Ensure that people using the service, who might be vulnerable to experiencing inequality of care and treatment, always have access to the full range of healthcare services when they need them, including mental health services.

Training

The service includes mental health issues in its staff induction programmes, which are based on the All Wales Induction Framework for Health and Social Care.

Continuing staff development aims (as applicable) to:

• improve people’s knowledge of mental health as a social issue
• increase awareness of the mental health issues experienced by people using the service
• improve understanding of the factors that affect the mental health of people using the service, including bereavement and loss, social isolation etc.
• develop skills in observing and identifying changes in the mental health of people using the service
• help staff to understand more fully their role and contribution to promoting and improving people’s mental health
• help staff understand the roles of community and hospital mental health services, including the mental health legislation.

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