Local community-led, user-led, and family-led organisations and small independent peer-support initiatives can provide support for people experiencing acute distress who are at risk of developing long-term conditions and those who do not trust or engage with mainstream mental health services. However, these supports should on complement, but not replace, mainstream mental health care.

Facilitation of diverse and flexible access to mental health care

To address longer-term mental health needs following the COVID-19 pandemic, community monitoring and mental health screening can be implemented in selected vulnerable groups. Additionally, digital health tools and digital phenotyping can facilitate a shift from individual-based approaches to population-wide mental health screening.

Increased Community Monitoring and Mental Health Screening for Sustainable Adaptations of Mental Health Delivery

- Increased community monitoring and mental health screening
- facilitation of diverse and flexible access to mental health care
- anticipate and prepare for an increase in unmet mental health needs in vulnerable groups

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- Ethics-driven and rights-driven considerations
- Service user knowledge and involvement
- Longer-term mental health needs
- Remote therapy
- Ways of working

Sustainable adaptations of mental health delivery

Moreno, C., Wykes, T., Galderisi, S., Nordentoft, M., Crossley, N., Jones, N., Cannon, M., Correll, C., Byrne, L., Carr, S., Chen, E., Gorwood, P., Johnson, S., Kärkkäinen, H., Krystal, J., Lee, J., Lieberman, J., López-Jaramillo, C., Männikkö, M., Phillips, M., Uchida, H., Vieta, E., Vita, A. and Arango, C., 2020. How mental health care should change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Psychiatry. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30307-2

How mental health care should change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic

Variance in access to mental health care due to ethnic and racial disparities raises social justice concerns about the distribution of resources and underlying social variables of inequality. Service users and family organisations have expressed concerns about potential future service cuts, disproportionate additional illness burden, reduced service access, inadequate financial support, exacerbation of inequalities in access to health care, and the need for greater family and carer support

Ethics-driven and rights-driven considerations for sustainable adaptations of mental health delivery

Users of mental health services and their families need to feel empowered to take ownership of their healing journey, especially now when service access is limited and face-to-face contact is often unavailable. Therefore, service users should be centrally involved in the development of mental health-care services and systems, and the renewed discussion of racial inequalities and inequalities in the availability of adequate and adapted health-care access can be viewed as a way to further encourage such involvement

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