Dear all I just wanted to let you know that this will be my last blog update on this site.  I have a new role working elsewhere in NHS West Midlands. I will be supporting the management of NHS performance across the region. 

The end of 2010 and a change in role for me provided a great opportunity for some reflection.  Over 2010 we have established this site, we expect it will continue as a repository of offender health and social care information. 

Within the West Midlands we also significantly improved our provision of places of safety.  A colleague who spent some of Christmas out on a night patrol in Birmingham, witnessed at first hand the need to take a member of the public to a place of safety for a mental health assessment.  He reported back that the process worked very well, the member of public got the care and treatment they needed and the police were very pleased with the real difference the NHS facility makes to their work.

For everyone continuing in offender health...

Ivan Riches has found our pod casts on our YouTube Channel thewmrdc.  He suggested that we may be interested in his short film Who is Peter?  This film, provides an opportunity to meet Peter.   Peter explains that he is going to stay in a crisis centre. Peter talks through his experience of lving with schizophrenia. 

This week we published 2 documents, Working in West Midlands' Prisons and Supporting Women with Mental Health Issues.

The first document, provided information from a staff survey and data analysis, the second case studies showing how 3rd sector organisations support women to improve their mental health and well-being.

The challenge for us all, is to plan how to turn these reports into local actions. It will be local actions that will be the only way to ensure changes happen over the coming months and years....