Mental Health services

As a General Practice (GP) we see many people with varying degrees of mental health concerns. These range from mild to severe. There is a clear pathway for those with moderate to severe mental health concerns via referral through to the District Health Board (DHB) funded services. For those with distressing, but more mild ‘degrees’ of low mood, stress, anxiety and life impacting mental unwellness there is a huge void. We pick up the pieces of this group of people. They are often young, working, male and female alike and often with a history of dysfunctional family life. There is an obvious association with drug and alcohol overuse and low self esteem. We will see these people, do a assessment (often using the PH-9 or Kessler screening tools) and either refer for four free sessions with Brief Intervention Services or if they’re not keen to take that step we follow them up, in GP. Some of these people do the four sessions of counselling and feel they need more input and so present to the practice. As there is no funding available for them, the cost of private counseling is prohibitive and they can’t continue. So we see them on a regular basis to allow them to talk, unload and make some changes to their work, home life as possible. Some of these patients present with years of of ‘unhappiness ‘ and are stuck in that place where they only know this way of ‘being’ in the world. Implementing change requires professional input from appropriately trained providers. We are not necessarily those people in the General Practice setting. There is no funding available to pay for appointments, we often see them for free and the consultations are longer than the standard 15 minute appointment.

We have come to the conclusion that there needs to be another way for these people to access appropriate treatment. We are funding a trained counsellor one day a week to see these people. We have started with a Grief/Loss coaching session. This involved two introductory talks and then a 6 wk course consisting of one hour per week to help those who are stuck after the loss of a person, job, family, finance or health to get back out into the world. Also the counsellor/ coach is seeing some clients via skype in order to fit in with their lives. The cost is $80/ hour and those utilising the service can choose to contribute to the full cost as they are able or not, and we will pay the outstanding amounts. Watch this space!!