Finlay stated that people with ‘multiple SWL problems will turn up at GP surgeries’. She believes early advice can assist them in ‘selfmanaging their conditions’. Mind’s Nat Miles asked her what was being done to persuade government and public bodies about the need to invest in SWL services in health settings. In response, Finlay, who had, until her retirement, been a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Justice, warned that the ministry will not fund such services because, for it, ‘it just means more people using the courts and tribunals’. She believes the health and well-being boards now run by local authorities ‘might be the best point of entry’ as, she suggested, both they and health authorities have an interest in reducing demand for their services by encouraging better health outcomes.

It is easy to persuade people that advice needs funding, James Kenrick from the charity Youth Access pointed out, but ‘local authorities just don’t have the cash’ and ‘the NHS doesn’t see it as having any health outcomes’. Dr Liz Curran, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University College of Law, argued that there needs to be a ‘different way of framing the argument’ to persuade government and public bodies to fund advice in health settings.

Curran spoke about the research she is conducting on improving health outcomes by making legal advice available in health settings. She has found that a key factor in successful programmes is ‘the high value of using secondary consultation’. Very often, a client is more likely to disclose problems to a ‘trusted health professional’ and, provided that professional has a good relationship with the lawyer, he or she will ‘use a secondary consultation to sound out the lawyer about the client’s problems’.

Staying on the topic of research, Curran emphasised that to make the case for better integration of health and legal services, there is a need for both quantitative and evaluative data. She said she considers that quantitative data is important to demonstrate the improved health outcomes, but evaluative data is needed ‘for clients to tell their stories about how such services made a difference to their lives’. However, Curran accepted that access to justice campaigners in Australia were fortunate as it ‘does not have the same strict procurement policy constraints as the UK’, and said she believes the Australian state legal aid boards have more freedom to grant-fund innovative services such as those in her home state of Victoria.

However, research alone is not enough; spreading the word is important too. By way of example, Curran showed the Victorian Legal Services Board grants programme’s short film illustrating the benefits of integrating health and legal services.1http://lsbc.vic.gov.au/?p=4990 She also highlighted the US-based National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership, which brings together information and research on the services that have now been established in 294 healthcare institutions across the country. Curran suggested the UK needs something similar to highlight what is already happening here and to spread best practice.

Ultimately, though, Curran passionately believes it is the experience of real people that is the most powerful way of persuading health services and government that this model works. I think she might be on to something. ■