Physical healthcare in adult community mental health teams
Project overview
In 2022, the IMPHS team was invited to conduct a service evaluation, to investigate how physical healthcare was being approached by staff within South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust's (FT) adult community mental health teams, and to identify common barriers or facilitators that may influence routine practice and patient experience.
Here is an overview of the project approach, outcomes and learnings.
You can also read about the project findings further below.
Being invited to participate in conversations about how we approach physical healthcare, what impacts our ability to, and what we can do to improve it, is so
reassuring…projects like this evaluation are so needed so the perspectives of staff on the ground can really be fed back in a way that helps us improve things for the future.
- Service evaluation participant who was involved in the project
Project outputs
Recommendations to improve physical health policy and practice
Throughout the life of the project, the IMPHS team worked closely alongside South London and Maudsley NHS FT Executives, Partners and nominated Physical Health Leads to ensure the evaluation approach and distribution of the findings were well considered, relevant and applicable to the wider strategic aims for physical health as set out by the Trust.
To continue to embed the learning from this work into the Trust, the IMPHS team will be supporting South London and Maudsely NHS FT to deliver a series of workshops with staff to take recommendations forward.
Academic evaluation
The service evaluation was delivered in collaboration with the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London, and colleagues from the University of Southampton. As a prospective exploratory evaluation, it sets out the main findings identified through interviews, focus groups and observations with clinical staff, service users and carers based within or accessing community services through South London and Maudsley NHS FT.
The full academic evaluation can be viewed here.
Conferences
6th Implementation Science Research Conference 2023 hosted by NIHR (National Institute of Health and Care Research) ARC South London and the Centre for Implementation at King’s College London. Limerick, Ireland.
King’s Health Partners Population Health Conference 2023. Hosted by the Population Health Team at King’s Health Partners. London, United Kingdom.
European Implementation Event Conference 2023. Hosted by the European Implementation Collaborative (EIC). Basel, Switzerland.
Evidence and Implementation Summit 2023. Hosted by the Centre for Evidence and Implementation, Behavioural and Implementation Science Interventions, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, and Monash University. Melbourne, Australia.
Webinar
In February 2023, the IMPHS team successfully delivered a live public webinar to broadcast the outcomes and learning from the Physical healthcare in adult community mental health teams project. Watch the full webinar below: