A wide-ranging look at the priorities and goals

Professor Kendall was appointed National Clinical Director (NCD) for Mental Health at NHS England in April 2016, and at NHSI in March 2017. As NCD for mental health, he is responsible for providing clinical advice and direction in mental health for NHSE and NHSI to Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Ministers, and government more broadly, including the intergovernmental MH committee, and for the Department of Health and other government departments. He also works closely with other national clinical directors, including for Dementia and older people’s mental health, and children and maternity, and with a group of Associate NCDs for mental health covering secure care, CAMHS, perinatal mental health, and adult mental health, including workforce and Out of Area Placements. He also leads a National Network for MDs in mental health, and chairs a number of national committees to further the implementation of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. He has recently started work with the NHS’s ‘Getting It Right First Time’ programme, and with Lord Carter and his team within NHSI. He continues as director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH), as visiting professor at University College London, and as MD for research in Sheffield, and works clinically with people with mental health problems in the Yorkshire city. 

AN INTERESTING ASIDE

Introduced by DIMHN President, Joe Forster, Professor Kendall began his keynote presentation, ‘Two years on – The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health’, with an interesting aside that demonstrated the high profile mental healthcare currently has in the UK. At this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which took place the week after DIMH 2018, he explained that the Royal Horticultural Society would be joining with NHS England in the NHS’s 70th anniversary year to ‘award’ a ‘Wellbeing garden’, the RHS ‘Feel Good Garden’ designed by Matt Keightley, to Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust as the winner of a recent competition.