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Enhancing partnership working in mental health
Driving forward the patient voice and partnership working across the NHS is one of the keys tasks of NHS England and, in fact, all staff in the service.
Achieving this agenda within hard to reach and vulnerable groups, however, is going to be a significant challenge and the board needs to look to existing success stories for inspiration.
For instance, they could use some of the unique engagement and participation initiatives currently being delivered across specialist secure mental health services.
The My Shared Pathway programme has demonstrated that patients within secure mental health services - some of the most vulnerable and isolated groups of individuals in health services - have been given a real voice. And they are determined to make sure they are heard.Collaborative working
The programme was launched in 2010 with three key objectives in mind:
to shift secure services towards a much more outcomes-based approach to the delivery of care;
to place as much responsibility as possible into the hands of patients to engage and drive their own pathways; and
to support a shift in the culture of secure services towards a greater emphasis on recovery, increased collaboration between staff and patients, and greater transparency in system processes.
At an early stage it was recognised that a tripartite approach to the programme was required if it was to really engage with the secure system. Clinicians, patients and commissioners had to work collaboratively if the programme was to succeed.
'It was only with the joint input of patients and clinicians that the real developmental work became clearer: how to change the culture'
In fact, without this "modelling" of real partnership working in the conception, development and delivery of the programme, it could not move the system towards more collaborative working. It therefore became clear that it was the journey, and this working in partnership, which was much more important than the destination itself.
Yorkshire and Humber Specialised Commissioning Group took the lead on the initiative as it already had a track record of working in partnership with patients in secure services through a range of initiatives that have recently been evaluated.
The launch day for the programme was organised and facilitated using an action method approach...