Overview
Each year over a million people receive care from specialist mental health services, and there are approximately 160,000 admissions to hospital for mental illness.
Mental health service users, especially when acutely ill, are vulnerable to a number of potential risks, including from their care or treatment. This makes mental health service users a particularly vulnerable group of patients within the NHS.
The aim of the ‘Improving patient safety in mental health’ programme is to support four organisations across the UK to improve the reliability of care in order to reduce harm and raise safety awareness throughout their organisations. Participating organisations will aim to produce a tested set of change packages replicable across other mental health care providers.
What are we doing?
Four mental health care providers will be supported by a quality improvement adviser in order to work on the following areas:
- leadership for patient safety
- a common care process that is known to be a factor in causing harm to patients (medication safety)
- a care process identified by the participating organisation (communication at transition points; patients’ perception of safety).
The 15-month programme commenced in May 2009. The participating sites are: Devon Partnership NHS Trust, Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust, NHS Tayside, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
What will the programme involve?
The work will take a collaborative approach of four learning sessions, to enable collaboration and sharing of knowledge across institutions. The emphasis will be on the implementation of evidence-based strategies, through the utilisation of the model for improvement, structured timelines and reporting mechanisms.
The support provided by the Health Foundation covers:
- The programme of activities and support designed and delivered for us by Noeleen Devaney, quality improvement adviser. This covers the running of four collaborative learning sessions and expert support delivered through a mix of site visits and online sessions.
- Direct funding to each participating organisation to contribute towards programme staff time for dedicated activities; short term start-up for new permanent posts or activities linked to education and training.