SMI Physical Health Service

About the service

The SMI (severe mental illness) Physical Health Service aims to provide specialist physical and mental health assessment. The team offers advice, intervention and signposting following the review (physical, mental and social). The team comprises of advance nurse practitioners, health care support workers and administrative support staff.

People living with severe mental illness face one of the greatest health inequality gaps in England. Compared with the general population, individuals with severe mental illness (SMI):

• face a shorter life expectancy by an average of 15 to 20 years
• are three times more likely to smoke
• are at double the risk of obesity and diabetes, three times the risk of hypertension and metabolic syndrome and five times the risk of dyslipidaemia (imbalance of lipids in the bloodstream)

Individuals with severe mental illness are not consistently being offered appropriate or timely physical health assessments despite their higher risk of poor physical health.

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health (2016) seeks to redress this imbalance and has committed to leading work to ensure that people with severe mental illness have their physical health needs met by increasing early detection and expanding physical assessment and intervention year on year.

Within North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, primary care networks and secondary mental health services are working together to ensure that people with SMI receive their annual mental and physical health review, with the aim of reducing health inequalities, closing this mortality gap and improving parity of esteem.

Location

Greenfield Centre, Furlong Road, Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, ST6 5UD

Greenfields Centre AccessAble