In brief

A team from Torbay Care Trust and Devon Partnership Trust have been involved in a project to improve the self management support available to people with depression. This project is part of our Co-creating Health programme.

It is estimated that one in four people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year, with anxiety and depression being the most common disorders. The UK also has some of the highest rates of self harm in Europe.

Torbay is an area of contrasts, with areas of affluence but also areas where deprivation is amongst the worst in England. It has a high prevalence of mental health problems including phobias, generalised anxiety disorder and mixed anxiety and depression. It has one of the highest rates of suicide in England and a large number of people claiming incapacity benefit due to mental illness.

Research has shown that supporting people to self manage their depression improves their quality of life and helps to relieve the burden on health and social care services. That’s because people who take an active interest in their own condition are more likely to take steps to lead a healthy lifestyle and improve their health.

Self management is particularly appropriate for people with depression and can help increase their sense of control over their lives. People are encouraged to learn the signs and symptoms of low mood or depression. This helps them to understand the possible interventions and make decisions with their clinician about the best course of action. Providing self management support reduces feelings of helplessness and helps to foster personal empowerment and responsibility.

The CCH team has focused predominantly on people who are being seen in primary care with a diagnosis of depression. They delivered the three key elements of the Co-creating Health programme to embed a self management approach across the work of the trust at all points in the care pathway. Taking a whole system approach to improvement, the project delivered development programmes aimed at clinicians, and at people with depression. It also looked at how to change how services were delivered in order to support self management across the Trust.

The project has been running since September 2007 and has already made significant progress. Now entering phase two, the team aim to continue to spread skills and knowledge about self management support, while also focusing on integrating the work they are doing with people with depression, clinicians and the redesign of services.