The place of Shared Decision Making (SDM) in UK mental health services: social policy analysis

This chapter focuses on the development of Shared Decision Making (SDM) as a UK policy in the field of mental health. It includes analysis of key policy documents, historical development of SDM in mental health, and the perspectives of key stakeholders. The chapter explains the rationale to implement SDM, its characteristics and innovative aspects, existing evidence that supports SDM. It outlines different variations to implement SDM that promote service users’ participation in their mental health care. The need for an attitudinal shift among service users, providers and informal carers towards SDW is discussed. Key dilemmas and challenges are looked at, including the power differential between the key players, questions about the capacity of people experiencing mental ill health, the focus on risk avoidance while ignoring the need for positive risk taking, and the prevailing inequality in UK society in terms of the experience of people from ethnic minority communities.