In the mental health care sector, professionals feel as if they are in a boat with a hole in the bottom and they have to fish while pumping out water.

A mental health professional said change in the sector must be inherent and asked people in the business sector how they would go about implementing change to move forward while managing a crisis.

Radical change, it was agreed, was essential for the Mental Health Act to be properly implemented.

The Office of the Commissioner for Mental Health and Older Persons yesterday organised a round table conference for about 80 professionals from the sector titled ‘Business solutions: any gains for mental health?’

What is not measured is not done

Professionals from the business sector were invited to deliver talks on how successful practices and methods in the industry could be transposed and adopted by the mental health care sector.

Lawrence Zammit, a founding partner of Misco, advised his audience that they had to go beyond health issues when dealing with mental health care. Patients, he said, should be treated as clients.

He highlighted the importance of adopting a systematic approach, with roles and responsibilities being clearly defined but not cast in stone.

Mr Zammit also spoke about the need to identify methods and techniques for defining customer requirements and to introduce practices for benchmarking performances.

“We have a saying that what is not measured, is not done. You must stop managing the past but start managing the future.” He stressed the importance of having strong leadership, which sought to create trust.

“You must work on engaging employees to buy into the vision and objectives established by the Mental Health Act. You must also help employees to be passionate about their work.”

During a conference on education, Mr Zammit said he had met two cleaners and when he asked the first what he was doing, the cleaner replied, somewhat irritably, that he was cleaning up the filth dumped by the children, adding that the parents should get their act together and teach their children manners.

Conversely, the second cleaner replied that the children needed a clean environment in which to learn properly and it was his job to ensure that.

Mr Zammit advocated a decision-making approach that promoted effective involvement, empowerment and people development.

Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne stressed the importance of prevention, adding it was a known fact that chronic depression was the greatest risk factor that led to suicide.

He believed in a spectrum of integrated services directed at the individual needs of every patient.

“There also needs to be improvement in the relations between professions so that everyone feels they are an integral part of the care team.

“This is the sacrosanct right of the patient as well as the sacrosanct right of the service provider. There should be a close relationship between the patient and the team which makes the patient feel he is involved in the decisions which, at the end of the day, involve him directly.”

Families were the biggest experts, Mr Fearne said, adding that if they would like to offer community service, then families should be fully involved.