Mental Health Practice aims to provide a wide range of information that will enable readers, who are overwhelmingly mental health nurses and nursing students, to develop creative, evidence-based approaches to practice.

It publishes original research, updates in policy or practice guidelines in the field of mental healthcare, descriptions of innovative practice, literature reviews, quality improvement projects, audits, and case studies.

It also publishes continuing professional development articles to inform, support and educate nurses working in this field of practice, and to help them prepare for revalidation.

If you have an idea for an article or how to develop the journal, the editorial team want to hear from you. We are seeking articles on the following themes:

• Communication
• Education
• Policy
• Service users
• Therapeutic practice
• Workforce

Submit your article

When you are ready to submit your article, you should do with our online submission website Editorial Manager.

Meet the editors

Lisa Berry

Editor

Lisa has worked in healthcare publishing for many years. She joined RCNi as assistant clinical editor of Nursing Standard in 2001, and became co-editor of Mental Health Practice in 2020.

Email: mhp@rcni.com
Tel: +44(0)20 8872 3169
Twitter: @RCNi_MHPjournal

Christine Walker

Editor

Christine is the co-editor of Mental Health Practice and has also been managing editor at Nursing Standard. She originally trained as a journalist and has worked for a variety of publications. Christine is also editor of Nursing Children and Young People and Learning Disability Practice, and a clinical editor specialising in nursing.

Email: mhp@rcni.com
Twitter: @RCNi_MHPjournal

Neil Brimblecombe

Consultant editor

Neil trained as a mental health nurse in the mid-1980s. Working in a soon-to-close asylum showed him the best and worst of nursing and made him more determined to minimise the harm that institutionalised psychiatry can do. Since then his career has encompassed a wide range of clinical, academic and professional leadership roles.

After a period in inpatient settings, he became a community psychiatric nurse in central London. Neil’s main clinical career focus from then on was crisis resolution home treatment (CRHT) services, involving him in establishing, running and researching early teams. He also edited the first book on CRHT published in the UK.

He was director of mental health nursing at the Department of Health (England) from 2005 to 2008, where he had the opportunity to set up and deliver a national review of the mental health nursing profession, the 2006 Chief Nursing Officer’s review. Neil then worked in director of nursing posts in various NHS trusts for ten years, latterly at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.

More recently, he has remained closely involved with mental health services through roles including professor of mental health at London South Bank University, mental health clinical lead for the London Urgent and Emergency Care Collaborative and non-executive director for Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust.

Neil’s research interests include advanced clinical practice roles for nursing, professional attitudes to smoking and international mental health services.

In 2018, an RCNi panel named Neil as one of the 70 most influential nurses and midwives in the 70-year history of the NHS.

Julie Sylvester

Commissioning editor

Julie has been a journalist for more than 30 years, many of which have been spent in nursing journalism as a reporter, writer and editor. As the editor of Primary Health Care, she has overseen the growth and development of the journal in championing the work of nurses across all community and primary care settings. She is also the managing editor of Nurse Researcher, the RCNi’s quarterly international research methodology journal and commissioning editor for Mental Health Practice and Nursing Management.

Email julie.sylvester@rcni.com
Call: 020 8872 3155
Twitter: @RCNi_Julie