There are long established ethnic/racial inequalities in experiences and outcomes of severe mental illness. The explanations range from variations of clinical assessment, communication, therapeutic offer, and uptake. Uptake may vary due to the influences of education, health literacy, acculturation, explanatory models, and fears of coercive care and criminalisation. These are difficult to accept, explain, and change. In CHiMES we use creative arts, ethnography, social science and place based methods to assemble rich experience-data and co-design clinical, systems, and policy interventions. I will share some of our work using cultural consultation, creative spaces, and collaborative leadership. Specific interdisciplinary projects seek to reduce ethnic disparities of mental health act use, support young people who experienced maltreatment and adversity, and older people living with multimorbidity. There are lessons for inclusive research activities, teaching and training, and NHS care.

Speaker details: Professor Kam Bhui (Department of Psychiatry & Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences), www.psych.ox.ac.uk/team/kam-bhui