Montagu backs mental health pledge

Members of Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently signed the national Time to Change campaign to co-incide with World Mental Health Day.

Time to Change is England’s biggest mental health anti-stigma campaign, run by the charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.

Now, the trust, which employs around 6,500 staff and cares for more than 700,000 people a year, has promised to take a series of actions to provide increased support for patients and employees with mental health needs.  

Chief executive Mike Pinkerton said: “Although we’re not a mental health trust and our role is predominantly to care for people’s physical well-being, we recognise that the two are very closely linked as being physically unwell can affect your mental well-being and vice versa.

“Mental health is just as important as physical health and it’s something that affects everyone but people in England have traditionally been embarrassed or reluctant to talk about it.  

“We’re totally committed, both as a healthcare provider and as a major local employer, to doing what we can to get rid of that stigma.”

As part of the pledge, the trust will raise staff awareness and understanding, work with specialist partner organisations to support patients who have both physical and mental health conditions, improve the services available for women with postnatal depression and train managers on how to support hospital staff with stress or other mental health conditions.