Our achievements

Posted on 24 Jul 2023

Our National Women’s Outreach Service (NWOS) has won the British Psychological Society’s Innovation in Practice Award 2022.

The National Women’s Outreach Service (NWOS) is a highly specialist service, funded by NHS England. It is designed to offer support and advice to teams supporting women in secure settings. The service includes clinicians from the National High Secure Healthcare Service for Women (NHSHSW), based at Rampton Hospital. It draws on their significant clinical expertise in working with women who are often complex and present with challenges to their teams, such as acute violence and significant self-harm.

Becky Sutton, Chief Operating Officer said:

“This is well deserved national recognition for a fantastic team. They work extremely hard and provide a really valuable service. They have specialist knowledge in reducing restrictive interventions and identifying how best services can care for patients.

“The service has also supported an increased number of patients to transfer successfully to lesser secure settings, which has facilitated an improved capacity in the NHSHSW being able to admit patients at a time of crisis, which is really important work, ensuring patients get the care they need. Congratulations to everyone involved”.

NWOS, formed and established in 2018, has supported teams across the UK. It is led by a consultant psychologist and includes highly specialist consultant forensic psychiatrists and specialist nurses.

Patients on the waiting list for admission to high secure care at the NHSHSW receive frequent involvement from the team which allows positive relationships to be built, and provides support to the teams caring for them.

Patients moving out of high secure care on trial leave are also better supported by improved planning, increased accessibility to NWOS, and via supportive transitioning to their new team in a more supportive way.

Yasmin Siddall, Consultant Forensic Psychologist, lead of the NWOS and joint Psychology Lead of the NHSHSW, and Dr Trevor Gedeon, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Medical Lead of the NHSHSW, said:

“We are absolutely delighted to have received this award from the BPS. It has been a privilege to have the hard work of a multidisciplinary team to be recognised in such a way. We are very proud to have supported patients and teams within the Women’s Secure Pathway and look forward to continuing to do so and further developing the service.”

More on the awards here: https://www.bps.org.uk/news/congratulations-winners-our-practice-boards-innovation-practice-award