One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Men with mental health issues want good physical health too

18/06/18 . News

Secure Man is a new physical health guide for men with mental health challenges requiring hospital care.

Developed by the Men’s Health Forum in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (BSMHFT), service-users at the Trust’s medium-secure units the Reaside Clinic and Tamarind Centre were involved at all stages of the production process. The 36-page full-colour A5 manual includes:

  • How to boost life expectancy through healthy eating and physical exercise
  • Taking care of your heart
  • Healthy eating advice and how to balance your diet
  • Physical activity and top exercise tips
  • Information about safe sex
  • Smoking cessation advice

All the tips, which were put together with the men at Reaside, are realistic and practical even for men living in institutions where healthy eating and exercise may be more difficult.

Dr Rebekah Bourne, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at BSMHFT, who led the development team, said: ‘Anecdotal evidence suggests that although patient’s within secure services have access to a wide range of physical health services there are sometimes areas of physical health that are not routinely addressed.  Additionally many report that they may have physical health anxieties or concerns that they are not confident to bring up with professionals, these can often for fear of being embarrassed or concerns being dismissed.  Examples of this may be sexual health matters, embarrassing symptoms, and concerns about weight gain, risks around various forms of cancer such as prostate or bowel cancer.'

The development team talked to a lot of the men under BSMHFT’s care using questionnaires and focus groups and a number of ideas came out. ’One suggestion that came out a lot,' Rebekah says, 'was that participants wished to have more information available that they could discretely look at in their own time. When we showed them some of the Men’s Health Forum’s health manuals, participants really liked the idea of this.’ Secure Man is the result.

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).