20 March2017

For immediate release

Aiming for the heights of quality patient care

STAFF from 10 of CNWL's adult working age mental health wards have been meeting to discuss starting a process that shows their care quality is officially among the very best.

They are readying themselves for accreditation under the Royal College of Psychiatry AIMS Accreditation scheme, assuring staff, service users, commissioners and regulators of the quality of the service being provided.

The process can take up to 20 months, but once they have received this it means the wards can show that they are meeting national guidelines and standards and receive clear recognition.

The initiative is part of the Royal College of Psychiatry's Centre for Quality Improvement, which identifies and reviews good practice and high quality care and helps services to identify and address areas for improvement.

The wards cover CNWL's mental health services at the Gordon, St Charles, Park Royal, Riverside and Northwick Park

During a morning workshop this first cohort of CNWL wards made a presentation of their assessments of their readiness for this process and their feedback on a peer review exercise.

Dr Bill Tiplady, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at CNWL and lead for CNWL's Inpatient Experience Clinical Network which has coordinated this process, said: "This shows our confidence in our inpatient staff and services and our willingness to commit to a program of getting all of our wards aligned with these agreed national best practice standards.

"Lots of hard work has already been carried to reach this point, but to have got this far and to have all ten wards telling us they are ready to go is a fantastic result. The workshop was about engagement and how we can achieve this."

The College's Deputy Programme Manager for the programme, Mark Beavon, attended the workshop to provide insight into what was required now.

He said: "This is the best I've seen in terms of preparation. The important thing from the organisation's point of view and the individual/ward level point of view is that everyone is on board here."

Staff also heard from Milton Keynes' inpatient mental health unit, the Campbell Centre, which has already gained its accreditation

Willow Ward Manager Ben Ayisi, who works at the Campbell Centre, said: "It's brought about a lot of positives for us. It's improved practice and led to some infrastructure improvements - patient safety call buttons in all bedrooms - and we now have activity coordinators who cover evening and weekend shifts which allow us to increase the number of activities in the evenings and weekends."

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