Acute solutions and beyond: lessons on service user involvement
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17556228200600015 |
| Pages | 34-37 |
| Date | 01 October 2006 |
| Published date | 01 October 2006 |
| Author | Laura Lea |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
34
Acute solutions and beyond: lessons on
service user involvement
Abstract
This paper describes how service user involvement at
all levels can offer a different route for the provision
of good quality care for people experiencing mental
distress. Taking examples of service user involvement
in the acute solutions project (Sainsbury Centre for
Mental Heath, 2006), the paper demonstrates how
effective involvement can bring about measurable
change in service provision and patient satisfaction.
Examining the benefits, barriers to, and practicalities
of service user involvement, it is argued that placing
involvement at the centreoffers solutions to the
persistent problems found in mental health services.
Workers who value and facilitate effective service user
involvement enable social inclusion, change service
users’ status and enrich their own lives and practice.
Key words
service user involvement; good quality care; inclusion
How can a service that appears to be
cut to the bone by staffshortage and
constant change continue to offer
best care?
Staff who are under pressure emotionally insulate
themselves from the organisation in order to survive. The
only trouble is that all of us, staff and service users, get
stuck when we don’t allow ourselves the fresh air of new
ideas and support from different people. People under
pressure default to keeping going in the only way that
they know how.Often for staff this means ‘dotting the Is
and crossing the Ts’ of organisational and legal
requirements. Somewhere among this the business of
seeking for and listening to the comments of service users
and carers becomes secondary. A telling comment from
the acute solutions report (SCMH, 2006) says it all:
‘Generally staff felt trapped by their working
circumstances, powerless and had no confidence that
change was achievable.’
Toput it mildly there appears to be ‘trouble at ’t mill’.
In an environment where there is a belief that change
is imposed from above and that this is unwelcome, can
enhanced service user and carer involvement offer at least
apartial solution?
The acute solutions project ran for three years from
2002. Led by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and
in partnership with the DoH, The Royal College of
Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Nursing, the NHS
Confederation and the College of Occupational
Therapists, it aimed to find ways of improving the quality
of care offered by acute psychiatric inpatient wards for
working age adults (SCMH, 2006).
Involving four partner sites in Essex, Derby,Liverpool
and West Sussex, the project sought to find answers to the
persistent problems with acute inpatient services: acute
wards were found to be unwelcoming, un-therapeutic and
sometimes even dangerous (SCMH, 2006). Acute
Solutions gave an opportunity to staff, service users and
their families to make changes to the environment,
activities and process of care on the wards. Service user
involvement in this project was significant, for example
CAPITAL (Clients and Professionals in Training and
Learning) a West Sussex service user organisation was
involved in work at Meadowfield hospital in Worthing.
Did this work make a difference to the
people involved, to how service users
felt about themselves, how staff
viewed and valued themselves and
service users, and to the ongoing
quality of care offered by those who
explored a different way of working?
Measurable change occurred. For example at one unit
before the project started 45% of the patients thought that
the staff were warm and friendly. At the end of the project,
100% thought so.
Atestimony to people’s hard work during the project,
this statistic also demonstrates the sorry state of the
service before the problems were recognised and
addressed. Surely friendliness is a basic requisite for
offering good health care to severely ill people. The
Laura Lea
Service user trainer and CAPITAL member
The Journal of Mental Health Workforce Development Volume 1 Issue 2 October 2006 © Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
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