Mental health and general practice: improving linkages using a total quality management approach

This paper reports on a project to implement total quality management strategies to improve the linkages between general practitioners and specialist mental health services. The project implemented a process of change and objectively assessed the success of the process. The project involved all mental health staff (n = 100) in the St George Division of Psychiatry and Mental Health. General practitioners registered with the St George Division of General Practice were invited to participate in the change process. The project showed that the attempts to engage general practitioners in the ongoing care of patients with chronic mental illness is unlikely to be successful until mental health services promote general practitioner linkages as an ongoing service goal, relevant at all levels of delivery.