Mental Health

One in four of us will experience some kind of mental health illness during our lives. Mental health problems are wide-ranging and can include:

Are you worried about your mental health, or that of someone you know?

A mental health crisis is when a person is in a mental or emotional state where they need urgent help. Mental health crises may take the following forms:

  • suicidal behaviour or intention
  • panic attacks/extreme anxiety
  • psychotic episodes (loss of sense of reality, hallucinations, hearing voices)
  • other behaviour that seems out of control or irrational and that is likely to endanger the self or others.

If you experience any of these, you should contact your GP, who knows you well and is aware of your medical history. They will refer you on to other services as necessary.

If it is not possible to contact your GP, or it is an extreme emergency:

  • go to your nearest hospital walk-in centre or A&E department
  • contact the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or call 999 where necessary

If you are worried about someone else who is experiencing a mental health crisis and the situation is out of control, you should convince them to follow the advice above, but if this is not possible, you should call the Primary Care Mental Health 24 hour Duty Line on 020 8951 2194.

If it is not an emergency, but you are worried about someone's mental health, you should:

If you care for someone, there is support available to you as well as the person you care for. The National Mind website (external link) has useful resources and information for carers who support someone with a mental health problem.

Looking after yourself

There are many proactive steps you can take to improve your mental wellbeing. Changing aspects of your lifestyle, such as your diet and exercise levels can be an important step towards feeling more positive for many people. Below are some pointers for how you might achieve this:

Mental Health Services in Barnet

There a wide range of services available to support people suffering from mental health problems. The support you receive will depending on the type of problem you are having, and the support could come from your GP, a mental health social worker, a counsellor or someone from a voluntary sector organisation such as Mind.

Primary Care Services

Primary care is the first level of care and first point of contact with services for most people with any health problem. Services include general practitioners (GPs), pharmacies, NHS Direct (external link) and NHS walk-in centres (external link).

Secondary Care Services

Secondary mental health services are provided mainly by mental health trusts: For many of these, you will need to be referred by your GP:

The Primary Care Mental Health Team is the single point of contact for most mental health service referrals It is a team of psychiatrists, community psychiatric nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, psychologist/psychologists.For more information or to make a referral, please contact the team:

  • Tel: 020 8951 2194
  • Fax: 020 8951 2149

The Primary Care Mental Health Team may then refer you on to other specialist services, such as The Network enablement service, or specialist mental health services for older people.

For the full range of support services available in the borough, visit the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust website (external link).

Support available from voluntary sector organisations

There is a wide-range of community support available for people with mental health problems, including:

Getting involved in local mental health services

There are several ways to share your views on mental health services in the borough, or to get involved in shaping them for the future.

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust also encourage users of mental health services to get involved in many ways. Visit their website (external link) for more information.

If you would like to complain about mental health services, you should contact the provider of the service directly. If you are still not satisfied with the response, you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman (external link). If you need help to make your complaint, voluntary sector organisations can often help you with this.

Useful links

Useful publications

Safeguarding Adults

Adult Social Care and Health home page

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email icon Email this pageLast modified by: Dawn Rowe on 29/11/2011


Contact

Primary Care Mental Health Team
North London Business Park (NLBP)
Oakleigh Road South
London
N11 1NP
Phone Number
020 8951 2194
Text Number (SMS)
07781 473279
Fax Number
020 8951 2149
Typetalk
18001 020 8359 2040
Email
adultsocialcare@barnet.gov.uk