As a Home Treatment and assessment team we have always focused on the needs of the Service User and we have engaged with Service Users to evaluate our service. One of the areas that became apparent from feedback was that Service Users felt that they needed time to talk about what was happening to them and also to ensure that the family members were aware of and part of the care that we were providing. We identified that at times due to the pressures on the service visits could be curtailed or the focus would be risk assessment and not interventions or allowing people time to talk.
We looked at our recording system and identified that it could identify the length of visits and also the number of visits that team members undertake. We recently developed this into a dashboard which shows the activity of the team and individual team workers.
With the feedback from Service Users we changed the focus of the Managerial Supervision sessions to include the number of visits and also the length of time for these visits. This information was pivotal in the development of resource management for the team and we presented a business case to show that all contacts for a Service User in a Mental Health Crisis needed to be for 50mins to 1hr plus travel and documentation time. We were able to evidence this by the computerised records and we have established that all visits for interventions need to be for a set amount of time. We have a system where in hand-over all visits are allocated to Team Members for the shift and potential allocated time this needs.
We have been able to focus on interventions and giving time to 'hear' what the person wants to say. Our feedback has been very positive and service users have indicated that they value our approach in this area.
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