Take a look at our funky new publication Get with the Plan now available on-line. This is aimed at introducing patients and families to the new holistic Care and Treatment Plans which all users of secondary mental health services should have by June 2013.
The legal right to the Plan kicked in from June last year but if you previously had a CPA plan in place before June then you must get a new-style Plan within a year of that CPA Plan's date - so all old-style CPA Plans should be superseded by June this year. It sounds complicated but this is important stuff and has the potential to improve mental health services in Wales dramatically if (1) the Plans are done well and (2) they are delivered on.
The key to getting your Plan done well is to use our comprehensive Guide launched by the Minister of Health last year - see this link. Incidentally the new "Get with the Plan" leaflet is not a substitute for the comprehensive Guide but is a useful introduction to a necessarily complex personal planning process.
Not that people seem to need much encouragement to look at the full Guide - we have distributed 31,000 copies already - strictly on request not speculatively! And watch this space for some excellent training materials to back up the Guide which we are developing with our friends in the Mental Health Foundation and Bipolar UK.
Postscript:
It's sunny today and not so bad last weekend either when I was putting into action my own holistic life plans for physical health (by going for some vigorous walks) and for hobbies and interests (by taking a camera). This was 9.50am Saturday from the dungeon of Dinefwr Castle...
And it's getting ever so slightly lighter of course: this is 4.20pm the same day...
