EMA hosts 'inspiring' mental health learning event on improving safety through experiences
Service users and colleagues from mental health service providers across the East Midlands attended a learning event focused on the shared goal of improving safety through experiences.
The face-to-face event showcased a range of new resources, developed as part of the East Midlands Alliance and Health Innovation East Midlands' 2023-25 Mental Health Local Programme, that could be implemented into practice across the region.
The range of resources include:
- Improving sexual safety: Staff survey and training.
- Reducing restrictive practice: HEAR US / I AM HEARD tools to enable a purposeful post-incident debrief.
- Preventing suicide and self-harm: Developing a personal safety plan.
Attendees also learned about:
- SBARD (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation, Decision) tool: to improve effective escalation and communication around physical deterioration in mental health settings.
- Quality improvement methods to improve care.
Feedback from the event was extremely positive. The highlight for many was hearing from the Lived Experience Contributors who had all helped to develop and test the new resources to ensure they work for patients and service users as well as for colleagues.
HIEM Programme lead, Hannah Jackson-Cox said: "The event was a fantastic opportunity to bring together colleagues who work in mental health services, commissioners and people with lived experience to share experiences and learn about the new resources that have been developed by our Communities of Practice. Thank you to everyone who attended and engaged in the sessions."
Dr Sanjith Kamath, Executive Medical Director at St Andrew's Healthcar e said : " Involving patients and ensuring their voices are heard and taken into consideration really is the key to making transformative decisions to help improve health and care in the region. These impressive resources and tools will be of huge benefit to patients across the East Midlands. It's for us now to focus our efforts on embracing these innovations to help keep patients safe from harm."
One attendee commented, "It was helpful to join with colleagues from across the East Midlands and learn about how things differ in their services. The contributions from people with lived experience were inspiring and interesting."
For more information on the programme and to download the resources visit HIEM website.
