Quality Assurance for Forensic Services
A large multi-disciplinary audience gathered on December 4th to participate in the Third Annual Conference on Secure Mental Health Services in the East of England at the Best Western in Chelmsford. The event was organised by St Andrew’s Healthcare in collaboration with the South Essex Partnership Trust and followed a theme on quality assurance for forensic services. For those that attended we hope you found it of value. By way of a summary, we are pleased to offer a snapshot of the information covered and hope that you can make future events that the service in Essex arranges.
The day started with concentrating on the difficulties around developing a new service in the absence of government guidelines. The guidelines are most definitely necessary to ensure consistency within secure services yet often result in more work once published in adaptation of current services to meet the identified criteria. The lessons to be learnt from a lack of adequate government arrangements within mental health services were demonstrated through the findings of the enquiry convened to investigate the treatment of Peter Brian.
The afternoon session led with a presentation on how the quality of services could be assured through the use of outcome measures in secure care. Incorporating the development of these outcome tools is be paramount in assisting the creation of a functional governance framework for other services to follow and adopt. The day closed on a focus on commissioner’s priorities to be addressed by cash strapped services keen to provide value for money. A lively discussion ensued on the age old debate between quality and pricing with clinicians and managers defending opposing opinions.
To obtain copies of the slides from any of the presentations, please email your request to us at help@standrew.co.uk
The day awarded plenty of time for networking and feedback was very positive. Based on this success, more seminars and events are planned by St Andrew’s for the East of England. Bookmark our events pages to monitor upcoming events.