Making Every Contact Count for Mental Health across the North Delivery and Evaluation Report 

We are pleased to announce that the Making Every Contact Count for Mental Health (MECC) project across the North Delivery and Evaluation report is being launched today. The MECC for Mental Health project aimed to equip frontline, non-specialist health and care workforce to integrate mental health and wellbeing messages and interventions into their day-to-day practice.  

The report sets out the project approach and its independent evaluation behavioural scientists Professors Lucie Byrne-Davis and Jo Hart. Some of the key messages are as follows: 

• 12 Lead Trainers and 100 Local Trainers from 83 organisations in primary and community care settings were recruited.  

• Between July 2021 and May 2022, 67 out 100 Local Trainers delivered the MECC for Mental Health training to 1,086 end-users. Several Local Trainers have bookings to deliver training by end of Summer 2022, raising the total number of end-users for project to at least 1,138.  

• The evaluation found that participants’ capability, opportunity, and motivation to have conversations with people about their mental health and to signpost them for further support have significantly increased. Moreover, the follow-up stage of the evaluation also found a statistically significant increase in the number of conversations about mental health and wellbeing which participants were having, compared with before the training. 

• On average, each participant reported seeing 12 patients or service users per fortnight who would benefit from talking about their mental health and wellbeing. Therefore, the MECC for Mental Health training programme could have an influence on over 13,000 interactions every 2 weeks. 

• Evaluators found that Local Trainers appreciated the ability to adapt the training for different audiences and the practical support from RSPH.  

• In thematic analysis, evaluators found that Participants had many positive things to say about MECC for Mental Health, particularly referring to how the initial training was delivered. Those who went on to become Local Trainers received the content first as participants, and this was a widely valued feature as it gave them a better understanding of how they should deliver it themselves. 

• “So, it’s tailored to what people need and the way that they need it as well, not just content, but the way in which you package that up at the end.” 

• “Resources do have a very comprehensive amount of info which fully filled the 3 hours.” 

• “The practical side of it was really good” 

• “I think what it’s done is broaden my scope, about mental health...” 

Clare Baguley, Commissioner of the Project and & HEE NW Clinical Workforce Lead said,  

“MECC for Mental Health delivers high quality and accessible training for the promotion of mental wellbeing across health and social care. The independent evaluation demonstrates the value that the training has brought to the system and the impact that it has on the confidence of individual practitioners to bring structured conversations about mental health into everyday practice.” 

Kiran Kenth, National and Regional Programmes Director at RSPH said 

“The MECC for MH programme has been exceptional in training the primary care and community care workforce in mental health conversations using the Making Every Contact approach.  It has achieved its aim to increase participants conversations with people about their mental health, and to refer people for further support.  We look forward to continuing with its development in the North and to scaling it up in other parts of the country and continue with our contribution in building a well trained workforce for better public health” 

Next Steps 

Health Education England North-West has secured funding to extend the project with a focus on sustainability from July 2022 to June 2023. Given that this project has shown that MECC for Mental Health fills a current gap in training provision for this workforce and the effectiveness of a cascade model of training in reaching a high number of end-users, it’s recommended to rolled out similar programmes nationally. 

Read the report