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Valerio Falchi et al present the results of a survey of Hertfordshire Mental Health team members, looking at burnout and job satisfaction following the introduction of 'New Ways of Working for Psychiatrists'
Abstract
New Ways of Working for psychiatrists (NWW) was introduced as a mechanism to encourage staff working in multidisciplinary teams to develop and extend their existing staffing roles, so as to provide a better service for people with mental health problems and to distribute responsibilities for service users care among the team members.
The aim of the survey was to measure staff burnout and job satisfaction before and after the implementation of NWW. We found that after two years of the implementation of NWW there was a significant reduction in the emotional exhaustion (-27.3%) and depersonalisation (-30.2%) subscales, and a slight improvement in the personal accomplishment (+8%) subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. There was also an improvement (14%) in staff satisfaction as described in the Hertfordshire Mental Health Team Member questionnaire.
Changing the role of psychiatrists in this team appeared to have a positive impact on the multidisciplinary team functioning as a whole. At the time of writing, NWW has been not fully implemented and consultants still continue to carry much higher caseloads than other team members, further monitoring of community mental health team staff reaction to NWW is recommended.
Key words
Maslach Burnout Inventory, questionnaire, survey, burnout, job satisfaction, CMHT, team, consultant, New Ways of Working
Introduction
New Ways of Working for psychiatrists (NWW) was introduced as a mechanism for using the skills of consultants more effectively and reducing burnout in the profession. Among its objectives was to encourage staff working in multidisciplinary teams to develop and extend their existing roles within the team, so as to provide a better service for people with mental health problems and to distribute responsibilities for service users' care among the team members, thereby removing assumed responsibility from the consultant in every case. (Department of Health, 2005; Department of Health, 2007).
NWW has faced considerable criticism from the psychiatric profession and it is unclear how changing the traditional working style of psychiatrists impacts on the work of other members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT).
Although there has already been a published study...