The Role of the Approved Mental Health Professional: A ‘Fool’s Errand’?

Abstract

This article explores the concept of a ‘fool’s errand’ in relation to the specialist role of the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP). An AMHP has a duty to make an application following a Mental Health Act assessment to detain and admit an individual to a psychiatric hospital. Findings from a qualitative study of ten multiprofessional AMHPs in England suggested AMHPs were subjected to a ‘fool’s errand’, when they were asked by psychiatrists and bed managers to practice in a way, they, themselves, considered unwise or foolish and that did not make sense in the context of their role. The author will illuminate how false starts and delays in securing treatment and care outcomes for mentally unwell individuals compromised AMHP practice.

The Professional Identity of Social Workers in Mental Health Services: A Scoping Review

“…Embedding rights and social engagement in practice thus emerged as a fundamental value of mental health social work. Social workers enacted these approaches, both within and against their employing services, with accounts of professional dissatisfaction relating to mental health service provisions failing to adequately engage with social and community resources [5,9,41,42]. Indeed, both Martin's [42] and Hurley and Kirwan's [43] studies show social workers as recognizing social determinants of mental distress through factors such as housing and poverty issues whilst also viewing their role within services as having a far narrower remit of meeting individual mental health needs.…”

“…In a British context, both AMHP and non-AMHP social workers identified organizational dysfunctions, such as a lack of preventative services and late referrals for support, as limiting the fulfilment of social work skills and values in practice [35,41,44,[52][53][54]. There was evidence in the English context of the integration of social workers into NHS mental health teams, often through secondment from Local Authorities, as enabling social work leadership in promoting social considerations of mental health needs [33].…”

“…Social workers also demonstrated flexibility in their roles within mental health services, applying holistic relational approaches to inter-professional interactions and recognizing competing priorities and expectations in a manner that enabled leadership in collaborative casework [37,41]. Stone et al [52] found social workers to report varying emphases on the therapeutic, statutory, and relational aspects of their roles.…”