Redirecting the emphasis to serious mental illness

The review of mental health nursing recommends a shift of focus to serious mental illness. To meet the challenge, mental health nurses need to acquire skills in case management and psychosocial interventions. There have been some excellent developments in nursing education and practice, including the Thorn programme. However, there are still several areas in which action is needed. Pre-registration training needs an urgent and radical overhaul. Today's generation of CPNs should abandon their work with patients with neuroses and be helped to acquire expertise in case management and medication monitoring. Lecturing staff also need to undergo change to a more clinically-focused role and abandon some redundant ideologies.