Once more

I had to spend most of the day attending a nationally organised workshop. Run by the Health Quality and Safety Commission of New Zealand, the aim of the day was to introduce to attendees the Mental Health & Addictions Quality Improvement Programme, which the Commission is contracted to develop and oversee. There are five "priority areas", and we had ten minutes to discuss each of these areas in small groups. We were required to identify things that presently are being done well, and also things that might be tried out. Given the large number of people present, and that this was the fourth of the four workshops days around the country, one would have to regard the probable value for money as low.

It was possible to make the point that the social needs of people whose understandable and one might suggest normal response to social deprivation should not be equated with mental illness.