Our achievements

Posted on 18 Oct 2019

The way some Nottinghamshire Healthcare Adult Mental Health (AMH) patients are treated, known as a pathway, has been acknowledged as national best practice. It is helping to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. A clinical pathway is a way of setting out a process of best practice to be followed in the treatment of a patient or client with a particular condition or with particular needs.

Michael Collins, Community Psychiatric Nurse with the Trust created an AMH pathway for complex clients in long stay 24 hour private care settings, which has been recognised as an Innovation of Excellence. It features in this years Care Quality Commission National Publication “The state of health care and adult social care in England, 2018/19”

It was introduced across Mansfield and Ashfield Local Mental Health Services in 2016 and delivered into all care facilities where Clients on a Care Programme Approach (CPA) Care Pathway, reside. Private partner support came from Thistle Hill Hall, where they fully embraced the model. Thistle Hill Hall is an adult holistic nursing care service in Nottinghamshire for adults with complex mental health needs. They offer an innovative approach which moves away from a traditional nursing home care model to a recovery and therapy-led model of care. The approach aims to enable people to stay out of hospital by supporting them to plan a meaningful life and to stay in control of it.

Michael said:

“I am extremely proud of this National Care Quality Commission recognition. The pathway has really helped to improve patient lives and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. 

I believe the Model would be of benefit more widely and hope following this publication, interest will continue to grow.”

The approach is supported by a clear pathway of care, which involves Michael, in his role of care coordinator, liaising between the homes, external NHS mental health services and other statutory providers. The integrated pathway was developed to offer more coordinated care. Taking just Thistle Hill Hall in to consideration before this was introduced, up to 12 different care coordinators would come in to see 23 people at the service. This meant that the people using the service were not always able to establish a relationship with them. Michael, who developed this innovative collaboration between the private and NHS sectors, now holds a clinic every week, in each of the homes he supports, to help staff with queries about treatment options. He has become a part of each service’s multidisciplinary team, and when consulted advises on an individual’s suitability for admission to the particular provider, whilst also able to assist as the primary contact point, to deal with day to day events regarding matters which may arise.

Megan Tranter, Registered Manager, Thistle Hill Hall said:

“We passionately believed in this initiative and we worked hard to support it, we saw first hand the many benefits this model had.”