Teams from mental health services across the East Midlands attended an event this month on Caring Together; Improving Safety Through Experiences.

The face-to-face learning event brought together service users, clinicians and staff from Mental Health Services across the six providers in the East Midlands to advance the shared goal of improving safety through experiences.

 Attendees heard about the resources developed as part of the East Midlands Alliance for Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism, and Health Innovation East Midlands’ 2023-25 Mental Health Local Programme that could be implemented into practice in their organisations.

Resources included:

• Improving sexual safety: Staff survey and training.
• Reducing restrictive practice: HEAR US / I AM HEARD tools to enable a purposeful post incident debrief.
• Preventing suicide and self-harm: Developing a personal safety plan.

Attendees also learned about:

• SBAR tool to improve effective escalation and communication around physical deterioration in mental health settings.
• Quality improvement methods to improve care.

The highlight for many though, was hearing from the Lived Experience Contributors who had all helped to develop and test these resources to ensure they work for patients and service users as well as for staff.

HIEM Programme lead, Hannah Jackson-Cox said: “The event was a fantastic opportunity to bring together colleagues who work in mental health services, commissioners and people with lived experience to share experiences and learn about the new resources that have been developed by our Communities of Practice. Thank you to everyone who attended and engaged in the sessions.”

Feedback from delegates included: “It was helpful to join with colleagues from across the East Midlands and learn about how things differ in their services. The contributions from people with lived experience were inspiring and interesting.”

For more information on the programme and to download the resources visit HIEM website.  (https://healthinnovation-em.org.uk/our-work/patient-safety/mental-health-local-programme)