Interprofessional Perspectives of Mental Health Crisis for Nursing, Health, and the Helping Professions, Kris Deering and Joanne Williams, eds [Book Review]

This very helpful and timely book provides an excellent overview of the various services involved in the care and support of individuals, and their carers, who are experiencing a mental health crisis. With themes of ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’, ‘participation’ and ‘inter-professionalism’ throughout the text, the authors have considered the importance and necessity of each in order for mental health crisis service provision to improve, and to keep the individual who is in crisis at the heart of decision making.
Perspectives of ‘crisis’ and the roles of Mental Health Social Workers, Police, Paramedics and Ambulance Service personnel, Crisis Resolution & Home Treatment Teams and the Emergency Department are carefully considered, noting the tensions and difficulties practitioners experience when supporting individuals in emotional distress, against the backdrop of the ‘Mental Health Crisis Care Concordant’ (HM Government & MIND, 2014).
The book contains constructive, theoretical discussions on the definitions and stages of ‘crisis’ and ‘recovery’, and the importance of a whole system approach to crisis care, which has many benefits to the reader. For example, the practitioner might be a newly-qualified mental health social worker who wishes to gain further understanding of how inter-professionalism works in practice by reading the chapter on ‘Policing the mental health crisis’. Likewise, an Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) can consider the perspectives of the paramedic, police and the Emergency Department when issues regarding the application of the Mental Health Act (1983) are raised. Such is the opportunity for learning and consideration of interprofessional perspectives, it is suggested that a second edition also incorporates the prominent roles of the Community Psychiatric Nurse, Mental Health Occupational Therapist and Hospital Bed Manager.