01 February 2017

For immediate release

Improving the physical health of mental health patients

A CNWL project that aims to improve the physical health of people with severe mental health problems has won a prestigious award.

The SHINE project, which has also been recognised as an example of good practice by NICE, won this year's Project of the Year category during the Trust's Annual Gem and Long Service Awards, held on Thursday in Central London.

This project was set up following evidence that people with severe mental illness die, on average, 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population. People in this group have historically had poor access to physical health care and are more likely to have lifestyle risk factors that contribute to heart disease and diabetes.

In recognition of this problem the SHINE project was funded by The Health Foundation to develop and demonstrate new ways of improving the physical health for people with serious mental illness at St Charles Hospital.

To achieve this aim, project leads Dr Bill Tiplady and Dr Ed Beveridge put together a project team from across St Charles Hospital and the community mental health team and including service users.

Then by using a range of quality improvement tools provided by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration of Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) Northwest London, the team were able to explore local problems and issues and identify and test potential solutions.

As part of the project a small number of indicators were developed to monitor recording on a weekly basis, which led to improvements in the recording of Body Mass Index and systolic blood pressure.

Service user team members led in developing a shared decision making tool that would help staff to engage with patients about their physical health and guide discussions about risk reduction strategies. Since its production staff have embraced the new tool and patients are now being actively engaged in discussion about their physical health.

Dr Tiplady has gone on to chair a London-wide policy programme on this issue (the ‘Stolen Years' Programme). This is good for CNWL and gives the Trust a chance to spread learning.

The work has also led to a number of publications to date with more in the pipeline and has been cited as a regional and national good practice example by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and the London Strategic Clinical Network.

Joint project leader Dr Bill Tiplady said: "I'm full of pride about this award. It's acknowledgement of the hard work of all the members of staff - nurses, doctors and healthcare assistants - as well as our service user colleagues."

Co lead Dr Ed Beveridge said: "This has been a truly momentous week for the project, as not only have we won this award, but now we've been published on the NICE website as good practice.

"It's recognition by our peers of the quality of the work we've done, which we are now able to disseminate further to improve health outcomes."

Notes for editors'

Attached is a photo of the Shine team

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net