The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the way that mental health care and services are delivered in London, with a rapid shift from face-to-face consultations to telephone and video appointments.
In the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, King’s Health Partners (KHP) Clinical Academic Group for Quality Improvement and Implementation Science (QIIS CAG) in the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust appointed King’s Improvement Science (KIS) to support a Trust-wide project to evaluate remote working practices.
The remit of this project was to identify any issues with how the new ways of working had been implemented and to reduce any negative impacts on safety and quality of patient care.
Project aim:
- To gain early insights on challenges and opportunities in organisation-wide implementation of remote working practices during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Key objectives:
- Develop a survey on staff and service user experience during the first national lockdown in March 2020
- Analyse survey data
- Translate survey findings into recommendations for a Trust-wide Covid learning programme ‘Reshaping our Services’
- Share learning with other mental health trusts via the Health Innovation Network and wider forums.
Collaborators in SLaM:
- Dr Emily Finch, consultant psychiatrist (deputy medical director, clinical lead of workstream for remote working implementation)
- Professor Fiona Gaughran, applied informatics research lead, director of research and development, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, professor of physical health and clinical therapeutics, King's College London
- Dr Hugh Jones, consultant psychiatrist (clinical director of QIIS CAG)
- Nahabedian Noushig, head of improvement, evaluation, and governance
