Developing and piloting an audit tool for mental health education and training: The National Mental Health Education Continuous Quality Improvement Tool

Abstract

It is clear from the international literature that education and training can play a crucial role in improving the quality of mental health service delivery. In the UK, post-qualification mental health education and training is not generally allied to the national policy agenda and there is a lack of service user and carer involvement in the design, development and delivery of educational curricula. The Department of Health in England has funded the development of a continuous quality improvement tool to address these important concerns and help commissioners of mental health education and training evaluate key aspects of courses. The design of the tool was informed by the literature and a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders. Subsequent drafts were refined through steering group consultation and the instrument was then piloted within a selected region in England. This has resulted in a brief, user-friendly tool that takes into account the views of all stakeholders in mental health education programmes, promotes dialogue and facilitates continuous quality improvement. The tool promotes self-assessment of: partnership arrangements; the relevance of the programme to the policy context; the extent to which service users and carers are involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of programmes; and the assessment of the impact of the programme. Results from the initial implementation project (to be reported separately) suggest that the tool is welcomed and can complement existing quality mechanisms.

Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools Based on Deep Learning

“…With the increasingly fierce social competition, the primary and secondary school students are facing multiple pressures such as learning and interpersonal relationships, and mental health problems frequently occur [1][2][3]. Traditional mental health monitoring methods are relatively passive and inaccurate.…”

A realist synthesis of multicentre comparative audit implementation: exploring what works and in which healthcare contexts

“…This was achieved by making use of ‘off-the-shelf’ audit tools that had worked in similar contexts,30 exploiting data routinely collected already31 50 and availing of existing communication conduits to connect with stakeholders 55 59 71. Piloting enabled existing structures to be identified prior to audit implementation,30 34 50 72 and was particularly effective if it resulted in iterative refinement of the audit process until it was appropriately tailored to the intended implementation environment 2 64 66 69…”

The national continuous quality improvement tool for mental health education: Results of targeted and supported implementation in England

“…The design of a national continuous quality assurance tool for mental health and education had been previously described (Brooker et al, 2005). This study considered the implementation of the tool across a geographical spread of English WDCs and a variety of programmes.…”

“…In a previous paper the development of the national continuous quality improvement tool for mental health has been reported (Brooker et al, 2005). In this second paper, the results of stage 2 of the project, the implementation phase, are described.…”