Our improvement days are now complete! From Lancaster to Sussex, it’s been a pleasure to meet each of you in person, learn about your work, and see your dedication firsthand. Thank you for your warm welcome and the inspiring look into your services. Every interaction has deepened our collective understanding of what quality improvement means in action. You can see a special video from Robinson Ward on their Improvement Day at the bottom of this page.

Your regular coaching sessions are also in full swing. These sessions are opportunities to refine practices, share insights, and problem-solve together. If you need to reschedule or adjust timing, please do get in touch with your coach by email.

This programme of quality improvement work for mental health inpatient services has a specific focus on addressing the inequities in care experienced by patients from ethnically diverse communities, patients with a learning disability, and autistic patients.

As part of supporting the achievement of the programme aim to improve the experiences of these three patient cohorts, we will be using this newsletter to highlight and explore together two of the statutory frameworks that look to tackle inequalities in mental healthcare provision: 

1. PCREF (Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework)
2. Mental Health Units Use of Force Act 2018

For this month, though, as an introduction to this topic and its importance, we are re-sharing a link to a webinar facilitated by Dr. Colin King MBE, Lived Experience Practitioner, and Harris Lorie, Senior Manager at The PSC that addresses the origins of the Use of Force Act and the importance of patient voice in mental health services.

The webinar is titled ‘Empowering lived experience on the wards’ and features powerful testimony from Aji Lewis, a prominent mental health campaigner and the mother of Seni Lewis, whose death following the use of excessive force was a catalyst for the Use of Forces Act.

Aji’s talk is powerful and poignant and we recommend giving the webinar a watch to appreciate the importance and context of the QI work happening as part of the programme. 

1. Lived Experience Community of Practice (online)

Date: Tuesday 5^th December 2024, 14:00 - 15:30

Invitation: The invitation was sent out via email and in the email version of the newsletter as an iCal attachment. If you would like to attend but have not received the link yet, please email mhaqi@thepsc.co.uk 

We are launching a new Lived Experience Community of Practice—a network for those whose lived experience has a bearing on their role to join in forming a community of practice to strengthen the roles of lived experience practitioners in mental health services. The community will recognise, affirm and develop the knowledge that lived experience practitioners contribute towards improving patient and carer experience and provide support for these roles.

We’ll use the first session to get to know each other, define our aims and how we wish to use this space as a community, form our principles and plan to develop our ideas. We will also be discussing how we can best imbed lived experience in governance to collect thoughts ahead of our January webinar, and looking at the current awareness, understanding and usage of statutory and mandatory frameworks such as the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) in current lived experience practice.

We invite you to bring your experiences and ideas to help shape this important group. For questions or to learn more, please contact Eleanor Levy at ellewasal@gmail.com.

2. Our Next Webinar: Empowering Lived Experience in Governance (online)

Date: Tuesday 21^st January, 13:00-14:00

Invitation: The invitation was included in the email version of the newsletter as an iCal attachment. If you would like to attend but have not received the link yet, please email mhaqi@thepsc.co.uk 

We would like to invite you to a webinar on Empowering Lived Experience in Governance, as the next instalment of our Mental Health Act Quality Improvement Programme webinar series.

In this session to be co-hosted by Dr Colin King and Harris Lorie, we will explore how lived experience can actively shape governance and decision-making within mental health services - at both an organisational level and an inpatient ward level. The session will include insights from leading practitioners, strategic connections with the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) and practical advice to increase the influence of lived experience in governance. We are also delighted to welcome back Aji Lewis for this session as an expert campaigner within the mental health field, who will be sharing her thoughts and insights with us on this topic. We hope to see as many of you there as possible for what promises to be an insightful and meaningful conversation.

3. Upcoming Executive Sponsor & Team Touchpoints

Throughout November and December, project teams will work with your coach to invite your executive sponsor to attend one of your coaching sessions. This connection will help ensure alignment between frontline practices and organisational leadership, building greater support for your initiatives. 

New resources in the resource bank: The programme resource bank now includes examples of some of the work from the pilot phase, including an Identity wheel developed by a team in Greater Manchester and an adapted Inequity waste wheel from a team in Sheffield.

Coaches’ corner: Try this tool for personal reflection on your practice – the Johari Window. See if you can think of a scenario in your day-to-day work (e.g. care planning discussion, discussion about your personal experience, discussion of risk), what was your experience vs. the other persons? For those of you thinking about co-producing care and treatment can you think about how this applies to your current processes?

What we’ve been reading:

The PSC: This month we read about relational practice, including this 2021 report from the Royal College of General Practitioners, "The Power of Relationships: what is relationship-based care and why is it important?"

We’ve also been looking at the 2023 investigation report on “Mental health inpatient settings: Creating conditions for the delivery of safe and therapeutic care to adults” by the Health Services Safety Investigation Body