WaMH in PC's blog

If you're a GP or medical student you might want to take a look at Doctors.net.uk which is a free network used by more than 40,000 doctors eeach week.

Doctors.net.uk is an active network of GMC authenticted doctors which has nearly 200,000 members offering a range of online resources and services.

If you are a doctor all you need to sign up is your GMC registration details and if you're a medical student just have details of your medical school and course to hand.

The site offers a 24-hour forum which connects doctors right across the UK , an online journal, case report and medical image library, around 240 free, accredited online training modules and excluse medical news and job alerts alongside research facilities and monthly podcasts covering key medical events.

Members also receive an exclusive, free-to-use email account using the doctors.org.uk domain which - unlike other web-based email services - is accepted in NHS Trusts.

For further details about what the site has to offer or if you would like to join please visit the Doctors.net.uk Members Benefit page.

Just a little bit more about the success of the campaigning which has led to a reduction in mental health discrimination within the UK.

The Time to Change project has successfully challenged people's perceptions about mental health issues Earlier as outlined in our Study Shows Fall in Mental Health Discrimination post last week.

A study by The British Journal of Psychiatry revealed that people who had seen the Time to Change campaign were more likely to have better knowledge, attitudes and behaviour towards people with mental health problems than those who had not.

The research uncovered significant changes among this group concerning their perception of the common social stigmas surrounding mental illness and you can read it for free on The British Journal of Psychiatry website.

Time to Change is now in its 2nd phase with funding from the Department of Health and Comic Relief with the current programme reflecting much of the findings presented by the in these results.

This includes implementing a strategic focus on the media, the extension of social contact alongside social marketing and a pilot project with primary care staff.

To find out more about the programme as a whole please read Sharing the learning from England’s biggest mental health anti-stigma and discrimination programme on the Time to Change website.

Following our last post about how campaigning has led to a fall in the levels of mental health discrimination - we thought we'd showcase how blogging has been part of the project to tackle this social stigma.

Earlier this week we wrote in our Study Shows Fall in Mental Health Discrimination post about how the Time to Change has successfully challenged people's perceptions about mental health issues.

The findings provide the first evidence that it's possible to change the way the people think about mental health problems which are more common than most people think.

A quarter of us are affected by such conditions during our lifetimes and being able to talk about mental health is something which should be important for all of us.

This is why encouraging people to talk about their experiences of mental health forms a central part of the Time to Change strategy to discourage discrimination.

Most people find it difficult to talk about mental health problems - mainly through fear or awkwardness - which is why Time to Change has asked people to blog about their thoughts on mental illness and help spread via social media.

A few small words - whether spoken or written - can make a big difference and you - and all you've got to do is look at the Blogs & Stories section on the Time to Change website to see how this is definitely the case.

The campaign offers tips to encourage people to talk to someone about their mental health problems while its blog section provide an avenue where people can put forward their thoughts in writing.

If you'd like to write a blog post about your experiences of stigma or related issues for the Time to Change Wales website please email info@timetochangewales.org.uk.