ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential roles and responsibilities of the primary care team in the care of people with serious and enduring mental illness. There are a number of possible reasons for these statistics, including lifestyle, diet, physical activity, smoking, obesity, drug side-effects and a relative lack of healthcare promotion and prevention. Early intervention in psychosis is a relatively new concept in mental health. It describes the health service and wider policy response to the increasing evidence of an unacceptably long duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). Early intervention for psychosis has now become a political priority in the UK and early intervention services (EIS) are being developed across England. The expansion of 'shared care' schemes between primary care and secondary care reflects the importance of partnership working. Psychiatrists prefer a social model of illness that emphasizes recovery at least in terms of quality of life issues such as returning to work and regaining family ties.
