Using Patient Feedback in Mental Health Services

Aim: This study aims to assess how feasible and acceptable it is to deliver facilitated team meetings, designed to support mental health teams to listen and learn from patient feedback and how helpful and feasible the evaluation methods are.There is evidence that patients within inpatient mental health services find it difficult to share care experiences and those working in such services find it challenging to listen and act on care experience data. There is also evidence that staff burnout is higher among mental health nurses than it is in other parts of the health service.Intervention: A team, made up of nurses, doctors, Allied Health Professionals and health care support workers working in an inpatient mental health services will engage in a 6 stage, facilitated intervention. This includes developing a more effective team culture by: getting ready for engaging with patient feedback; establishing values and vision for care experience and team work; discussing issues associated with trying to provide positive care experiences; analysis of care experiences; making change happen; reflection, evaluation and celebrating success.Evaluation: Feasibility and acceptability will be assessed by considering views of participants and the facilitator on the intervention and ability for it to be delivered as planned. We will also consider facilitator; researcher and participants' views on the appropriateness of the evaluation methods and assess if we can achieve 50% staff response rates to a survey-person-centred practice index(PCPI). We will assess if the following methods help evaluate impact: care experiences using data from Care Opinion; complaints and feedback cards; improvement efforts made by the team in response to feedback; PCPI scores to assess changes in team culture and lastly, observations made during team meetings to assess change in team culture over time and staff survey about attitudes and beliefs about patient feedback.

Patient inclusion criteria:Adults over the age of 18 who are able to give informed consentCurrent inpatient who has been admitted for at least 48 hoursInpatients who have been assessed by ward staff as able to participate in the studyPatient exclusion criteriaPatients who are experiencing acute high distress and/or approach by a researcher is likely to cause more distress.Patients who have not been in the ward long enough (less than 48hrs) for ward staff to assess their ability to engage with the researcher.Staff inclusion criteriaStaff member who meets one or more of the capital criteria being used to create a team with most chance of effectively engaging and working with patient feedback (Appendix 9)Staff who are willing to participate in the intervention and the evaluationStaff whose shift pattern allow them to attend at least 80% of intervention meetingsStaff exclusion criteria:Staff who are unable to attend intervention delivery during the dayStaff who are not members of the clinical or support team