To improve the communication between a community mental health team and its service users, their families and carers

Abstract

This article describes the application of quality improvement (QI) to solve a long-standing, ongoing problem where service users or their carers felt they were not given enough information regarding diagnosis and medication during clinic assessments in a community mental health setting. Service users and carers had shared feedback that some of the information documented on clinic letters was not accurate and the service users were not given the opportunity to discuss these letters with the clinician. The aim of this QI project was to improve the communication between the community mental health team (CMHT) and service users and their carers. Wardown CMHT volunteered to take on this project. The stakeholders involved were the team manager and deputy manager, the team consultant, the team specialist registrar, team administrative manager, two carers and one service user. The project had access to QI learning and support through East London NHS Foundation Trust’s QI programme. The team organised weekly meetings to brainstorm ideas, plan tests of change to review progress and to agree on the next course of action. The outcome was an increase in service user satisfaction from 59.9% to 78% over a period of 6 months, and a reduction in complaints to zero.

Changing prescribing practice for rapid tranquillization–a quality improvement project based on the Plan-Do-Study-Act method

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Veterans’ views of PARTNER-MH, a peer-led patient navigation intervention, to improve patient engagement in care and patient-clinician communication: A qualitative study

“…Yet, efforts to improve patient-clinician communication, especially in mental health settings, remain limited [ 20 - 22 ]. Given the central role of communication in mental health services [ 19 , 23 - 25 ], improving clinical communication for minoritized groups may lead to positive mental health outcomes and improved health equity.…”

Implementation of a Quality Improvement Roadmap in the Department of Internal Medicine of an Academic Medical Centre in Singapore

“…The benefits of applying Quality Improvement (QI) principles in clinical practice have been widely reported with significant improvements to patient care aspects such as care coordination, safety, operational efficiency and access to care, in order to deliver the best care and value to the patient [ 1 ]. Furthermore, QI provides a methodological approach towards a problem by understanding the root cause and developing impactful interventions that are targeted at the key problems [ 2 , 3 ].…”