ABSTRACT
As will be described later in Chapter Seven on “Consultancy and External Expertise”, the provision of training is very much determined by the particular characteristics of the organisation delivering a service. For example, when I worked in the NHS it was accepted that the only staff that could work directly with patients were those qualified in psychiatry or social care (psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, and occupational therapists). In contrast, within the voluntary and housing sector you can have staff with no vocational qualifications working with the most mentally ill patients and thus being poorly equipped to deal with the day-to-day management of such patients (O’Neill & Wells, 2015). An anomaly in the provision of services for mental illness is that a patient can leave a ward staffed with highly qualified mental and health professionals and move the same day to a residential/supported living setting, with few staff being aware of the breadth and depth of expertise required to provide the best support and care for the very same patient.
