1. Graham Thornicroft received a Knighthood this year – what was this for?
Professor Sir Graham Thornicroft said:
“The award of this Queen’s Birthday Honour is in recognition of work dedicated to improving mental health. To try to achieve this, all the work I do is with teams of outstanding collaborators: people who use mental health services, family members, and colleagues in policy, clinical and research settings.… My hope is that this award will further strengthen these global efforts to end the stigma of mental illness and to provide everyone with mental health problems with the support and care they need.”
Graham specialises in ways to reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness – he has led the evaluation of Time to Change, the national programme to reduce mental health stigma in England, ensuring that advances in the field are evidence based.
Graham has made significant contributions to the development of mental health policy in England, including Chairing the External Reference Group for the National Service Framework for Mental Health, the national mental health plan for England for 1999-2009. He has also chaired the World Health Organisation Guideline Development Group for the Mental Health Gap Action Programme Intervention Guide, a practical support for primary care staff in low income settings to help treat people with mental health problems, now used in over 90 countries worldwide.
To date, Graham has 500 publications and has written or edited 30 books, seven of which have won awards.
2. Why are you looking forward to taking part in this forum?
I hope that my video contribution can help people to understand better what integrated care is and what it can offer in terms of providing better care for people with mental health problems, and with comorbid physical health conditions.
3. What can people learn by attending the TheMHS forum on Community Mental Health Systems: Human Rights and Services?
I think that this is a great opportunity for people to swap experiences and to learn, both formally and informally, from each other about what has worked and what has not worked to improve mental health and to make mental health services better.
