I always like some tasty statistics, and what could be
tastier than the briefing on the Approved Mental Health Professional Workforce
in England, which has just been published.
A brief document, amounting to no more than 5 pages, it
nevertheless contains some fascinating figures (at least to me) relating to numbers
and demography of AMHPs.
As 92% of local authorities responded, it is a
comprehensive description of the state of AMHPs in England. For a start, it can
be said with a high degree of certainty, that there are 3,900 AMHPs in England.
Despite the Mental Health Act 2007 opening the AMHP role
to nurses, occupational therapists and psychologists, as well as social
workers, the overwhelming majority of AMHPs are still social workers. 95% are
social workers, compared to only 4.5% who are nurses. The remaining 0.5% are
occupational therapists. Oh, and there is actually one clinical psychologist.
A recent post on the Masked AMHP Facebook Group enquired
how many AMHPs were full time. This document identifies that 23% of AMHPs work
on a full time basis, while the remainder practice on a part time basis, in
conjunction with their substantive post, whether that be as a social worker or
mental health nurse. This second group would tend to be on a rota, perhaps on a
weekly basis.
The report notes that “overall, AMHPs are more likely to
be male, older and white than the whole social worker workforce”.
For example, while 10% of social workers as a whole are
under 30, only 2% of AMHPs are under 30. This doesn’t surprise me. Most people
do not make a decision while still in secondary education that they want to go
into social work, but tend to make this decision later in life. A typical
social worker would tend to be in their mid to late 20’s
by the time they train. Then they would have to have at least 2-3 years post
qualification experience before they’d even be eligible to train for the AMHP
role.
The majority, 68%, are aged between 30 and 54. Which
means that 30% of the current AMHP workforce are aged 55 or more. This is
potentially worrying, as many of those (me included) are approaching retirement
age, so it could mean that there will be a shortage of AMHPs in the future,
unless there is a vigorous programme of encouraging social workers, nurses, and
others, to train and practice as AMHPs.
There’s also a notable discrepancy in the gender of
AMHPs. While 81% of social workers are female, only 71% of AMHPs are female.
Perhaps female professionals are deterred from training as AMHPs by the
perception of the riskiness of the role?
There is a curious discrepancy between the numbers of white
AMHPs and those from a black or minority ethnic background. While 23% of social
workers are non white, this falls to only 15% of AMHPs.
There are some interesting figures relating to the length
of time professionals have practiced as AMHPs. This seems to indicate that,
once qualified, AMHPs tend to remain in the role. 57% of AMHPs have been in the
role for 10 years or more, and 19% of AMHPs have been practicing for 20 years
or more.
This is where I modestly reveal that I have been a
practicing, MWO, ASW and AMHP for a total of 37 years. I honestly don’t know
where the time’s gone.
There are even figures about the pay of AMHPs compared to
social workers as a whole. In England, AMHPs receive an uplift in pay of 9%
compared to non AMHP social workers.
There are no national policies relating to the recompense
of AMHPs for the highly skilled and often arduous work that they do. While most
local authorities offer extra increments or honorariums for being on an AMHP
rota, there are still some that don’t.
Lyn Romeo, the Chief Social Worker for Adults, concludes
the report by saying: “Detention rates are increasing and AMHPs are dealing
with challenging contexts as the prevalence of mental ill health episodes are
increasing.”
She goes on to say:
We know that detention rates of people from Black and
Minority Ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately high, so we need to think
how we can ensure that the AMHP workforce reflects the population of people we
are serving.
Since the Mental Health Act Review is specifically
addressing this issue, among many others, and is imminently due to present its
conclusions for reform to the Prime Minister, it is to be hoped that some at
least of these discrepancies can be resolved.
I'm a nurse who's wanted to train as an AMHP for the last five years. The problem is, many NHS trusts don't want to release their staff to train and then subsequently go on the AMHP rota, there also arguments from various unions that nurses (and indeed OT's) who do the course should be on a higher band, which NHS trusts will say they can't do.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, many Trusts do not recognise the benefits of having trained AMHPs working in their MH teams. Our local trust pays nurse AMHPs on Band 7, which is also an incentive for nurses to train.
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