Clinical health and wellbeing
Clinical roles contribute to patient care, from diagnosis and treatment to rehabilitation and prevention, ensuring the wellbeing of individuals in hospitals, clinics, and community settings.
What is a clinical role?
There are many clinical roles that provide the opportunity support patients with their mental health and overall wellbeing in fields such as medicine, nursing, and psychology.
Psychiatrists are highly trained medical doctors who specialise in six different specialties to support people with a wide range of mental health problems. Psychologists on the other hand are clinical professionals who study the human mind and behaviour. After completing a degree in psychology, you could work as a psychological professional or continue your studies for a doctorate-level psychology role.
If nursing is your calling, you may want to specialise in psychiatric and mental health care. Your role as a mental health nurse is to promote and support a person’s recovery, helping them live independent and fulfilling lives.
There are a variety of allied health professional (AHP) roles which all play a vital part in treating, rehabilitating and improving the lives of patients. You can find out more about the AHP roles that support mental health and wellbeing below.
“The NHS needs a far more proactive and preventative approach to reduce the long-term impact for people experiencing mental health problems and for their families, and to reduce costs for the NHS and emergency services”.
NHS England
Dietetics
Dietitians diagnose and treat people with nutrition problems and help people make healthy lifestyle and dietary decisions, mostly working with individuals diagnosed with medical conditions. Dietitians undertake...
Mental health nursing
A mental health nurse is a registered nurse (RMN) with specialist training in the area of mental health. Mental health nurses work in hospitals and the community, to support people with mental health issues. Mental...
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapists help people of all ages who have physical, sensory, or cognitive problems including disability, illness, trauma, ageing, and a range of long-term conditions. They help people to regain...
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapists help people affected by injury, illness, disability, ageing and frailty through movement, exercise, manual therapy and advice. They enable people to improve their physical health and activity, taking...
Podiatry (Chiropody)
Podiatrists provide preventative care, diagnosis and treatment of a range of problems affecting the feet, ankles and lower legs, to improve people's mobility and quality of life. There is no difference between...
Psychiatry
Psychiatrists are medically qualified doctors who diagnose and treat patients with mental health disorders. Psychiatrists can also prescribe medication as well as recommend other forms of treatment...
Psychology
Psychologists study and help treat people's cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behaviours. Psychologists apply the scientific study of the mind and behaviour to solving real life problems...
Social work
Social workers help people to find solutions to their problems. This ranges from helping to protect vulnerable people from harm or abuse or supporting people to live independently. Social workers work with individuals...
Speech and language therapy
Speech and language therapists (SLT) are allied healthcare professionals who provide life-changing treatment to both children and adults. SLTs support and help people, both physically and psychologically, to...