Breaking Barriers Transforming Primary Care to Serve the Physical Health Needs of Individuals With SMI in the NHS.
Emma Sheridan, Oladayo Bifarin, Maria Caves and 4 others
PMID 39844720WHAT IT FOUND
People with severe mental illness in England had 34.9% uptake of physical health checks.
Nurses should expect barriers: stigma, medication side effects, inflexible appointments, and poor care coordination. Recommendations are not proven fixes.
Key findings
01Uptake of physical health checks for people with severe mental illness in English primary care was 34.9% in the third quarter of 2021/2022. The average uptake in the general population was 52.6%.
02Service users and staff described barriers to physical health checks, including perceived stigma, diagnostic overshadowing, medication side effects, inflexible appointment times, and limited support networks.
03The paper recommends integrated services, role-specific training, flexible appointments, and care navigators, and notes more research is needed to assess their efficacy for people with severe mental illness in the UK.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a perspective paper and non-systematic review, not a systematic review or trial, so it does not establish that the recommended changes work. The authors did not recruit participants or measure patient outcomes themselves; they summarise other studies. Some cited evidence is from small, pilot, or inpatient settings, such as the 15.6% increase in assessment uptake, so it may not transfer to primary care. The paper is specific to the UK NHS, and its recommendations depend on local services, funding, and workforce. It discusses many barriers at once, so it cannot show which one matters most for a given patient.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the recommendations for integrated care, staff training, flexible appointments, and care navigators as proven to improve physical health. This is a non-systematic perspective review, and the 15.6% increase in assessment uptake came from a small inpatient study, not primary care.