NICE publishes new quality standard and guidance on service user experience in mental health

Published: 15 December 2011

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published a new quality standard and clinical guidance on service user experience in adult mental health.

Over the past few years several documents and initiatives have highlighted the importance of the service user's experience and the need to focus on improving these experiences where possible. These include Lord Darzi's report ‘High quality care for all' (2008), which focused on the importance of the entire service user experience within the NHS, ensuring people are treated with compassion, dignity and respect within a clean, safe and well-managed environment. The Government also signalled in its white paper, ‘Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS' (2010) that more emphasis needs to be placed on improving service users' experience of NHS care.

To deliver the best possible experience for patients who use NHS services, high quality care should be clinically effective and safe. This quality standard and clinical guidance will aim to ensure that patients have an excellent experience of care from the NHS.

The quality standard for service user experience in adult mental health contains a number of statements, which include ensuring that people can access mental health services when they need them. It also states that people using mental health services are actively involved in shared decision-making and supported in self-management. In addition the standard states that people in hospital for mental health treatment and care have access to meaningful and culturally appropriate activities 7 days a week, not restricted to 9.00 am to 5.00 pm.

The guidance for service user experience in adult mental health contains a number of recommendations for healthcare professionals that underpin the quality standard. These include:

• Healthcare professionals working in partnership with people using mental health services and their families or carers. Offering help, treatment and care in an atmosphere of hope and optimism. Taking time to build trusting, supportive, empathetic and non-judgemental relationships as an essential part of care.
  
• When working with people using mental health services, taking into account the stigma and discrimination that are often associated with using mental health services.

This guidance has been developed alongside the quality standard and aims to promote person-centred care that takes into account service users' needs, concerns and preferences.

Dr Fergus Macbeth, Director of the Centre for Clinical Practice at NICE said: “The aim of this quality standard and guidance is to improve the experience for people using adult mental health services in the NHS. This area is still, sadly, associated with stigma and embarrassment, despite 1 in 4 people in the UK suffering with a mental health problem at some stage in their lives. I am sure this guidance and accompanying standard will be helpful aids to all those working in this field”.
The quality standard and guidance will be available on the NICE website (www.nice.org.uk) from Wednesday 14 December 2011.