The beginning of Making Health Whole: The foundation of our whole-person care strategy

Mental health services have long understood something the wider healthcare industry is only now beginning to fully recognise: information alone does not sustain engagement. 

You can explain a treatment perfectly. You can provide the evidence, the pathway and the next steps. But if someone feels overwhelmed, uncertain or disconnected from their care, engagement can still quietly break down. 

At Mednet, we've understood this long before Making Health Whole™ became our mission. 

Our agency work in mental health dates back to 2015 and has taught us that outcomes are shaped as much by emotion, confidence and routine as by treatment itself. That’s why we’ve always built integrated patient support into our medical communications strategies.  

Where our whole-person care strategy began 

One of the earliest examples of this thinking was our work supporting the Maintaining Adherence Programme (MAP) for people living with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder. 

This is where our method of designing for the full human context began. We looked at the impact of mental health on the lives of patients and their families and put that at the heart of our patient support programme design. 

Unlike previous mental health programmes, we built the MAP around a simple recognition: disengagement is rarely caused by a lack of information. More often, it reflects the realities of living with a condition over time. 

The patient-centred care model reinforced something we continue to see across healthcare today: disconnection is usually gradual and quiet. 

It appears in missed appointments, hesitation to start treatment, silence, declining motivation and withdrawal from support. Not because people don't care, but because emotional fatigue, uncertainty and cognitive overload accumulate over time. 

That principle continues to sit at the centre of Making Health Whole. 

How this continued to shape our patient engagement strategy 

The same thinking continued to shape our work across different healthcare systems and cultures, from community mental health initiatives in Ghana in 2018 to support programmes developed with the Gibraltar Health Authority in 2023. 

Different settings. Same principle: healthcare only works when it works in real life. 

Mental health awareness is part of our DNA 

This inclusive approach to wellbeing is built into the very fabric of how we operate as an agency, both internally and externally. We’re a certified Mindful Employer, and our award-winning internal mental health strategy and ongoing partnership with Mind has helped support our team to better manage their health and wellbeing at work and at home.  

We’ve also mentored, trained and sponsored 17 people who have struggled with their mental health, helping them back into work through our partnership with Mind’s initiative, Workplace Leeds. 

Why this matters now 

Today, many organisations are talking about patient engagement and whole-person care strategies. Our experience in Mental health showed those of us at Mednet years ago that outcomes are shaped by far more than information alone.  

Making Health Whole is the result of understanding what happens when healthcare is designed around the realities of people’s lives, not just the condition being treated.