All-Wales Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHP) conference

9.15am: Registration

9.45am: Welcome and arrangements for the day

Jim Widdett, Improvement and development manager, Social Care Wales

10am: A practitioner perspective

Rebecca Horton will share her experiences and reflections on her role as an AMHP practitioner. She will talk about the challenges of the role and current issues that can affect practice.

As an experienced AMHP, Rebecca has experienced a full range of scenarios, and these personal and professional experiences of the role will resonate with the AMHP community.

She’ll give an honest account of AMHP practice in 2025, and discuss the challenges faced with compassion and good humour. There'll be a question-and-answer session at the end of Rebecca’s session.

11am: Break

11.15am: Section 12 experiences of mental health act assessments

Dr Alan Woodall will share his experiences of the Section 12 role from a holistic perspective that recognises and supports AMHP challenges. The session will:

• highlight mental health practice from a Section 12 point of view
• discuss barriers that are commonly experienced within mental health act assessments
• discuss organisational obstacles that sometimes have to be overcome.

Alan’s presentation will be interactive and there will be a focus on citizen perspectives at the sharp end of crisis care intervention. There'll be a question and answer session at the end of Alan’s session.

12.30pm: Lunch and a chance to network with delegates and speakers and discuss any points or issues from their sessions.

1.15pm: The national context of policing, partnerships and coroner’s outcomes in mental health services

Michael Brown will talk about major issues in policing and mental health partnerships, including learning from coroners’ enquiries and Prevention of Future Deaths notices. The session will cover the Right Care Right Person approach, prevention of violence and managing risks.

2.45pm: Break

3pm: Michael Brown will lead this interactive session where there’ll be an opportunity to engage and share your thoughts and experiences.

4pm: Summing up and closing the conference

Jim Widdett, Improvement and development manager, Social Care Wales.

Please note: both the Cardiff and Llandudno conferences will follow the same programme.

Rebecca Horton, Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP)

Rebecca qualified as a social worker in 1999. She became an Approved Social Worker in 2003 and has continued to practice as an AMHP since. Rebecca has mainly worked in mental health services, community mental health teams, crisis resolution home treatment teams but has also worked in an emergency duty team as a sessional member.

Rebecca has been a senior practitioner with management responsibilities and has recently been appointed as team manager and AMHP lead. She’s married and is a mum of two teenagers and has navigated family life while remaining on the AMHP rota.

Rebecca has worked in both rural and urban areas and understands the similarities and the differences.

Dr Alan Woodall, MBChB (Hons), MPH, PhD, Dip Ther, MRCGP (Distinction)

Unlike most doctors, Alan never wanted to be one. Growing up as a miner’s kid in County Durham during the strike of 1984 to 1985, he expected to go down the pit or join the army at 15.

Alan is an experienced GP and has been qualified for nearly 25 years. He is a clinical lead GP for integrated care for his NHS organisation. He provides expertise on managing patients with serious co-morbid physical and mental illness who don’t get to their GPs. He is also their Section 12 lead clinician and serves on the first and second psychiatry rota for Mental Health Act assessments. Alan is keen for better teamworking and outcomes for Mental Health Act assessments for patients in Wales.

Alan is an Honorary Professor and Senior Clinical Lecturer at two universities. He has received £3m in research grants to examine medication-related harms from antipsychotics in patients with multimorbidity, and he has more than 40 publications. Alan is also a senior investigator for prison deaths for the Welsh healthcare regulator.

Michael Brown

Michael is a PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, researching mental health related deaths after police contact. He was formerly a police officer for 27 years, specialising in mental health.

He was the National Mental Health Coordinator at the College of Policing, authored national guidelines for the service and was part of the Mental Health Act Review.

Michael has acted as an expert witness in a number of high-profile inquests in both the UK and Australia, including restraint related incidents and fatal police shootings. He has also given evidence to major national inquiries like the Adebowale and Angiolini reviews. He is the only police officer to be awarded the President's Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.