Short Cuts: Mental health user group pushes Swedish approach

A mental health user group is urging health authorities to adopt 'a more innovative approach to services' by taking a lead from Sweden. Brent Lund Alternatives - a group bringing together north-west London's Brent User Group and Swedish service users - visited the Hotel Magnus Stenbock, which provides rooms for service users in the early stages of crisis or following discharge at a cost to residents of £310 a month. BLA says the rooms cost service users less than a 'dirty, mouse-infested hell-hole in Brent'. BLA was set up last year to promote partnerships and exchange of information between Brent and Lund, the home town of Maths Jesperson, Sweden's leading expert on user involvement.