Mental Health - Rehabilitation
There are around 3,500 people in inpatient mental health rehabilitation beds in England, and 100,000 more who live in mental health supported accommodation.
Mental health rehabilitation services provide community and inpatient treatment and rehabilitation of adults with severe mental illness, predominantly psychosis; around 80% of people have a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder or other psychosis.
GIRFT’s national report offers 12 key recommendations to improve the patient experience and clinical practice, and to develop a skilled multidisciplinary workforce to deliver successful and sustained inpatient care discharge. Reducing out-of-provider placements, providing care closer to home and standardising whole-system rehabilitation pathways are also important factors outlined in the report.
From November 2025, NHS England brought together its improvement teams under the GIRFT brand, delivering a more unified, clinically led and data-driven approach to service improvement. NHS England’s former Mental Health Improvement Support Team (MHIST) is now part of the expanded GIRFT Mental Health team, building on existing strengths and ensuring improvement recommendations are embedded within regional performance oversight to maximise impact.
Visit the community of practice of the former MHIST team on FutureNHS, where you will find resources for improving quality, experience and productivity in mental health service.
- Mental Health – Rehabilitation Clinical Lead
Dr Sridevi Kalidindi CBE
Mental health – rehabilitation clinical lead
Dr Kalidindi is a consultant rehabilitation psychiatrist and past associate medical director at the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, as well as Chair of the Association of Mental Health Providers, supporting more than 300 mental health VCSEs.
She continues to work clinically with her rehabilitation and recovery community team, and works with commissioners, housing providers and others to develop needs-led, evidence-based, successful and innovative services at a local, regional and national level.
Dr Kalidindi is a past Chair of the Rehabilitation and Social Psychiatry Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) and, in this role, co-led national policy change to enable investment into mental health rehabilitation, working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. She facilitated the commissioning of NICE guidance for complex psychosis.
As a national advisor for the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH), she was integral to developing the community mental health framework in relation to rehabilitation. She was in the team developing rehabilitation standards for RCPsych, as part of the ongoing peer-review assessment framework, AIMS Rehab.
In 2017, Dr Kalidindi was awarded 2017 Psychiatrist of the Year by RCPsych and remains a spokesperson for the college. She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours in 2020.
Twitter: @skalidindi1
Useful information
Please take a look at our wide range of recommended useful links and resources.
GIRFT mental health rehabilitation webinar: supported housing
21st January 2025 – This webinar, hosted by Dr Sri Kalidindi, the GIRFT clinical lead for mental health rehabilitation, discusses how VCSE (Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise) /Charitable Housing Associations providing care, support and housing and mental health rehabilitation clinicians can work together to understand and improve the supported housing system for people living with mental illness.
You can view the webinar on FutureNHS platform (registration/login required)
GIRFT mental health rehabilitation forum: How to bring people back from out of provider placements and setting up community rehab teams
In November 2022, Dr Kalidindi hosted a follow-up webinar (to July’s) to enable teams to ask further queries about setting-up community rehabiliation teams.
You can view the webinar on FutureNHS platform (registration/login required)
GIRFT webinar: Strengthening community mental health rehabilitation to eliminate out of provider placements
In July 2022, Dr Kalidindi hosted a webinar to discuss how the GIRFT report can be used to strengthen community mental health rehabilitation services to help eliminate out of provider placements.
You can view the webinar on FutureNHS platform (registration/login required)
GIRFT webinar: Mental Health Rehabilitation – Person centred pathways
On 14th January 2021, we held our second webinar on mental health rehabilitation, led by GIRFT clinical lead Dr Sridevi Kalidindi, featuring a number of excellent speakers focusing on person-centred rehabilitation pathways. If you wish to view this webinar, please contact info@gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk
Here are some links you may find useful in connection with the webinar discussion on person-centred rehabilitation pathways:
Sussex Mental Health and Housing strategy
Tabard Forensic Service (example of Look Ahead work. Models also exist where the primary commissioned contract is held by the relevant mental health trust or local authority and sub-contracted to the housing provider).
You can view the webinar on FutureNHS platform (registration/login required)
Webinar – 10th December 2020
We held our first lunchtime webinar with clinical lead Dr Sridevi Kalidindi and a number of external speakers to focus on a whole system approach to mental health rehabilitation, and bringing people back into local care pathways. If you wish to view this webinar, please contact info@gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk
Questions and answers from the 10th December webinar are available here
Courtesy of Royal College of Psychiatrists
News, reports and resources
Courtesy of Royal College of Psychiatrists
Rehabilitation and social faculty news | Royal College of Psychiatrists (rcpsych.ac.uk)
Mental health supported accommodation service specification
Enabling Recovery (2nd Edition): Cambridge Press
Commissioner Guidance for Mental Health Rehabilitation Inpatient Services
published 9/01/24
Commissioning Framework for Mental Health Inpatient Services
published 12/01/24
Smoking cessation protocol (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust)
Find out more about GIRFT’s data-led approach and best practice resources:
- Mental Health - Rehabilitation National Report
In April 2022, GIRFT published its national speciality report for Mental Health – Rehabilitation:
Click image to view the pdf report
- Mental Health – Rehabilitation Report Video
Watch the video about the Mental Health – Rehabilitation report…
Click above to play the Mental Health – Rehabilitation national report video
- Mental Health – Rehabilitation News
- Summary of National Report Findings
GIRFT national report for mental health rehabilitation aims to bring more patients closer to their home
Enabling more people to receive mental health rehabilitation in a setting closer to their home – and in the community, whenever possible – is one of the overarching objectives of a new national report from the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) team.
Over half of the 3,500 people that use inpatient mental health rehabilitation beds in England receive care outside of their local area (out of provider placements – OPPs), mainly with independent providers, away from their families and support networks.
The GIRFT report advocates adopting a whole-system approach and closer collaboration between trusts, commissioners (health and social care), housing and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) partners, patients and their carers to help improve the quality of care. In doing so, care for patients closer to home, in a community setting (as much as possible), increases the likelihood of patients having a successful and sustained recovery.