Case Studies
Auchinlea promotes participation
Advance statements are one of the provisions of the 2003 mental health Act that aim to improve service user participation in decision making. They enable anyone with a mental disorder to make a written statement about how they would like to be treated if they subsequently become too ill to make decisions, or to tell people what they want. Despite the intentions of the Act, all the available evidence indicates that the take-up of advance statements throughout Scotland has been low.
Auchinlea House Mental Health Resource Centre forms part of the Easterhouse Community Health Centre which is situated to the east of Glasgow city centre and north of the M8 motorway. It provides mental health services to the Easterhouse, Baillieston, Garthamlock, Craigend and the Barlanark areas of Glasgow`s east end. The Greater Easterhouse housing estate was developed in the late 1950s to re-house families who had been living in the cramped tenements of the inner city. But the lack of basic amenities, such as shops, recreational grounds, cinemas and poor transport soon encouraged the rise of youth gang culture and other social problems. Now, the area faces the challenges of worklessness, crime and drug/alcohol addiction and requires high levels of mental health support and services.
In this context, it was clear to staff at Auchinlea House that the task of encouraging people to prepare an advance statement is not as simple as it might at first appear. This case study explains how they set about developing closer relationships with service users and helping more of them to understand the value of advance statements. Their idea was to organise a series of informal group sessions at Auchinlea House to tell people about their rights under the 2003 Act to make an advance statement and to nominate a Named Person.
Centre manager Donald Macleod talks about the complexity of implementing the law regarding advance statements and why he thinks so few people are getting involved in preparing one.
