Search results

The Creating Capable Teams Approach (CCTA) was developed as part of the National Institute for Mental Health National Workforce Programme (NIMHE NWP). This article will identify what the CCTA is, explore its development and implementation and highlight some of the outcomes and plans for further development.

This paper presents nine key considerations for improvement in health and social care drawn from recent national and international experience and describes the ways in which some of these ideas are being incorporated into local whole systems intervention.

This position paper focuses on the current tensions and challenges of aligning inpatient care with innovations in mental health services. It argues that a cultural shift is required within inpatient services. Obstacles to change including traditional perceptions of the role and responsibilities of the psychiatrist are discussed. The paper urges all staff working in acute care to reflect on the service that they provide, and to consider how the adoption of new ways of working might revolutionise the organisational culture. This cultural shift offers inpatient staff the opportunity to fully utilise their expertise. New ways of working may be perceived as a threat to existing roles and responsibilities or as an exciting opportunity for professional development with increased job satisfaction. Above all, the move to new ways of working, which is gathering pace throughout the UK, could offer service users1 a quality of care that meets their needs and expectations.

This paper provides a review of the impact of three of the six work streams from the New Ways of Working for Applied Psychologists. The organisational change model of Beckhard and Harris (1989) is used to evaluate why the recommendations of the reports are being adopted at different speeds. Evidence that all are being used is presented. The paper starts with a restatement of the purpose of applied psychology that was developed during the work and is likely to stand the test of time.

Developing capable practitioners who offer high quality care can bring significant improvement to dual diagnosis services. But developing such practitioners presents many challenges. This paper offers some practical solutions to this problem and proposes that the wider dissemination of existing skills and resources could effect substantial change.

This article describes the processes undertaken to implement change in East Lancashire adult mental health services through New Ways of Working. The views of users, carers and staff of the services at the start of the project are described, and an overview offered of the development work that took place to support the change. Barriers to change are also described.

Recent drives to modernise the mental health workforce have been led (in England) by initiatives such as New Ways of Working and informed by the Ten Essential Shared Capabilities (10 ESCs) (Department of Health, 2004), reflected elsewhere in the UK. Learning materials have been developed to support these and educators encouraged to embed them within curricula. Yet, little has been said about how such principles could or should apply to the practice of mental health educators themselves. Higher education plays a crucial part in shaping tomorrow's practitioners; yet educators can receive scant mention when workforce initiatives are launched. Here, then, we consider the 10 ESCs, examining how these might be put into practice in a higher education context. The pedagogic rationale for this perspective is discussed in terms of Biggs' (2003) concept of ‘constructive alignment’, Ward's (1999) ‘matching principle’ and Eraut's (1994) analysis of ‘professional education’. Reconceptualising higher education educators as a part (albeit semi‐detached) of the mental health workforce may help us move beyond a ‘tick‐box’ approach ‐ exploring not only whether the 10 ESCs are reflected in the content of curricula, but how they are embodied within teaching teams.

The New Ways of Working national programme was started by psychiatrists (through the Royal College of Psychiatrists) when it became apparent that the roles they were being asked to carry out were unrealistic in their demands. This had contributed to a drop in recruitment and early retirement for psychiatrists in post. The New Ways of Working programme led to a reconfiguration of mental health services in many areas and an increase in the numbers of psychiatrists as well as improved levels of job satisfaction.This paper describes some of the challenges that still need to be met if New Ways of Working is to be fully implemented.

The National Workforce Programme (DoH, 2004a), supported by the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Workforce sub‐group, commissioned a project to look at New Ways of Working (NWW) in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). This article provides an overview of the NWW CAMHS project using two of the 10 early implementer sites as examples. General lessons from the project are explored.