Complexity and Change in the United Kingdom's System of Mental Health Care

Observations from a small country: mental health policy, services and nursing in Wales

Wales is a small country, with an ageing population, high levels of population health need and an economy with a significant reliance on public services. Its health system attracts little attention, with analyses tending to underplay the differences between the four countries of the UK. This paper helps redress this via a case study of Welsh mental health policy, services and nursing practice. Distinctively, successive devolved governments in Wales have emphasised public planning and provision. Wales also has primary legislation addressing sustainability and future generations, safe nurse staffing and rights of access to mental health services. However, in a context in which gaps always exist between national policy, local services and face-to-face care, evidence points to the existence of tension between Welsh policy aspirations and realities. Mental health nurses in Wales have produced a framework for action, which describes practice exemplars and looks forward to a secure future for the profession. With policy, however enlightened, lacking the singular potency to bring about intended change, nurses as the largest of the professional groups involved in mental health care have opportunities to make a difference in Wales through leadership, influence and collective action.

'In the middle': A qualitative study of talk about mental health nursing roles and work

Professional identities are important in defining workers' roles, and are concerned with attributes relating to those roles and how they are performed. Evidence shows mental health nurses undertake many different roles as part of their work. Yet, the roles of mental health nurses are insufficiently understood by healthcare staff, service users, and nurses themselves. Mental health nursing work has been deemed invisible and lacking in role clarity. Poor understandings about professional identity of mental health nurses result in difficulties recruiting to the profession, nurses lacking confidence articulating the value of their work, with misunderstandings apparent with service users about the specific role of mental health nursing in their care. The primary focus of this study, conducted in Wales, United Kingdom, was to examine how talk about mental health nursing was handled by participants from multiple perspectives. Data consisted of 17 individual interview transcripts with mental health nurses and 13 interview transcripts from mental health service users, and three focus groups with nursing students. Participants' talk was analysed using thematic analysis. This paper reports how participants described mental health nursing work to have significant role overlap with other multidisciplinary team members. Participants highlighted that mental health nurses often have an 'in the middle' label because the complexity of their work can be hard to describe. The implications are pertinent for nurses because if they are considered to be in a liminal position, they risk being perceived as neither one role nor another, resulting in nurses struggling with professional identities and role confidence.

‘Should it fit? Yes. Does it fit? No’: Exploring the organisational processes of introducing a recovery-oriented approach to mental health in Australian private health care

This article explores the implementation of an innovative approach to mental health care in a private health setting. Open Dialogue is a recovery-oriented approach to mental health that emerged in Finland, which emphasises family involvement, interdisciplinary collaboration and a flexible, needs-adapted approach. Early research is promising; however, little research has explored Open Dialogue outside Finland. This study aimed to explore the introduction of this approach at a private, inpatient young-adult mental health unit in Australia. Drawing on data from a long-term ethnographic field study that included 190 hours of observation and qualitative interviews, the findings show that despite staff members being inspired by and supportive of Open Dialogue, the existing ideology and organisational structures of the unit conflicted with the integration of Open Dialogue principles. Dialogical ways of working were challenged by medical dominance and emphasis on economic efficiencies. This study emphasises the importance of a ‘good’ fit between organisational cultures and innovations. It also highlights the challenges of moving towards recovery-oriented and family-focused models of care in the Australian neoliberal health care context. There is a need for organisational and ideological change in health services that is receptive to, and meaningfully supports, efforts to implement recovery-oriented care.

Care Coordination as Imagined, Care Coordination as Done: Findings from a Cross-national Mental Health Systems Study

Introduction:

Care coordination is intended to ensure needs are met and integrated services are provided. Formalised processes for the coordination of mental health care arrived in the UK with the introduction of the care programme approach in the early 1990s. Since then the care coordinator role has become a central one within mental health systems.

Theory and methods:

This paper contrasts care coordination as work that is imagined with care coordination as work that is done. This is achieved via a critical review of policy followed by a qualitative analysis of interviews, focusing on day-to-day work, conducted with 28 care coordinators employed in four NHS organisations in England and two in Wales.

Findings:

Care coordination is imagined as a vehicle for the provision of collaborative, recovery-focused, care. Those who practise care coordination are concerned with the quality of their relationships with service users and the tailoring of services, but limits exist to collaboration and open discussion. Care coordinators describe doing necessary work connecting people and the system of care. However, this work also brings significant administrative demands, is subject to performance management which distorts its primary purpose, and in a context of scarce resources promotes generic professional roles.

Conclusion:

Care coordination must be done. However, it is not consistently being done in the way policymakers imagine, and in the real world of work can be done differently.

Cross-national mixed-methods comparative case study of recovery-focused mental health care planning and co-ordination in acute inpatient mental health settings (COCAPP-A)

Background

Mental health service users in acute inpatient wards, whether informal or detained, should be involved in planning and reviewing their care. Care planning processes should be personalised and focused on recovery, with goals that are specific to the individual and designed to maximise their achievements and social integration.

Objective(s)

We aimed to ascertain the views and experiences of service users, carers and staff to enable us to identify factors that facilitated or acted as barriers to collaborative, recovery-focused care and to make suggestions for future research.

Design

A cross-national comparative mixed-methods study involving 19 mental health wards in six NHS sites in England and Wales included a metanarrative synthesis of policies and literature; a survey of service users (n = 301) and staff (n = 290); embedded case studies involving interviews with staff, service users and carers (n = 76); and a review of care plans (n = 51) and meetings (n = 12).

Results

No global differences were found across the sites in the scores of the four questionnaires completed by service users. For staff, there was significant difference between sites in mean scores on recovery-orientation and therapeutic relationships. For service users, when recovery-orientated focus was high, the quality of care was viewed highly, as was the quality of therapeutic relationships. For staff, there was a moderate correlation between recovery orientation and quality of therapeutic relationships, with considerable variability. Across all sites, staff’s scores were significantly higher than service users’ scores on the scale to assess therapeutic relationships. Staff across the sites spoke of the importance of collaborative care planning. However, the staff, service user and carer interviews revealed gaps between shared aspirations and realities. Staff accounts of routine collaboration contrasted with service user accounts and care plan reviews. Definitions and understandings of recovery varied, as did views of the role of hospital care in promoting recovery. ‘Personalisation’ was not a familiar term, although there was recognition that care was often provided in an individualised way. Managing risk was a central issue for staff, and service users were aware of measures taken to keep them safe, although their involvement in discussions was less apparent.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that there is positive practice taking place within acute inpatient wards, with evidence of widespread commitment to safe, respectful, compassionate care. Although ideas of recovery were evident, there was some uncertainty about and discrepancy in the relevance of recovery ideals to inpatient care and the ability of people in acute distress to engage in recovery-focused approaches. Despite the fact that staff spoke of efforts to involve them, the majority of service users and carers did not feel that they had been genuinely involved, although they were aware of efforts to keep them safe.

Future work

Future research should investigate approaches that increase contact time with service users and promote personalised, recovery-focused working; introduce shared decision-making in risk assessment and management; and improve service user experiences of care planning and review and the use of recovery-focused tools during inpatient care.

Funding

The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.

The role of non-governmental organizations in the mental health area: differences in understanding

Introduction

The contribution’s aim is highlighting the differences in understanding non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) role in the mental health area within the public support network for patients with mental health problems from various viewpoints, in order to achieve progress in supporting patients with mental health problems in local communities.

Methods

Qualitative data gathered as a part of a cross-sectional study of NGOs in the support network for patients with mental health problems in two Slovenian health regions (56 local communities), carried out in 2013 and 2014, were used. Qualitative analysis of interviews, focus groups and answers to an open survey question was performed.

Results

There are differences in understanding NGOs’ role in the support network for patients with mental health problems, which stem from the roles of stakeholders (local community officials, experts, care providers, and patients) within this system and their experience.

Discussion and conclusion

The actual differences need to be addressed and overcome in order to provide integrated community care. The importance of knowing the current state of NGOs in their life cycle and the socio-chronological context of the local community support network is evident.

'There's a lot of tasks that can be done by any': Findings from an ethnographic study into work and organisation in UK community crisis resolution and home treatment services

Across the United Kingdom, large numbers of crisis resolution and home treatment services have been established with the aim of providing intensive, short-term care to people who would otherwise be admitted to mental health hospital. Despite their widespread appearance, little is known about how crisis resolution and home treatment services are organised or how crisis work is done. This article arises from a larger ethnographic study (in which 34 interviews were conducted with practitioners, managers and service users) designed to generate data in these and related areas. Underpinned by systems thinking and sociological theories of the division of labour, the article examines the workplace contributions of mental health professionals and support staff. In a fast-moving environment, the work which was done, how and by whom, reflected wider professional jurisdictions and a recognisable patterning by organisational forces. System characteristics including variable shift-by-shift team composition and requirements to undertake assessments of new referrals while simultaneously providing home treatment shaped the work of some, but not all, professionals. Implications of these findings for larger systems of work are considered.

Complex caring trajectories in community mental health: contingencies, divisions of labor and care coordination

The concept of 'trajectory' refers to the unfolding of individual service users' health and illness experiences, the organization of health and social care work surrounding them and the impact this work has on people involved. Using qualitative data from a study completed in two sites in Wales we first reveal the complex character of trajectories encountered in the community mental health field. We show how these can be shaped by features peculiar to mental ill-health per se, and by features with organizational origins. We then use our data to lay bare true divisions of labor. Mental health professionals featured prominently in our study. We also reveal relatively invisible contributions made by professionals on the periphery, support workers, unpaid lay carers and service users. In examining the significance of our findings we identify particular lessons for mental health practitioners, managers and policymakers sharing concerns for the coordination of care.

Connections and consequences in complex systems: insights from a case study of the emergence and local impact of crisis resolution and home treatment services

In this article the broad contours of a complexity perspective are outlined. Complexity ideas are then drawn on to frame an empirical examination of the connections running between different levels of organisation in health and social care, and to underpin investigation into the intended and unintended local system consequences of service development. Data are used from a study conducted in the UK's mental health field. Here, macro-level policy has led to the supplementing of longstanding community mental health teams by newer, more specialised, services. An example includes teams providing crisis resolution and home treatment (CRHT) care as an alternative to hospital admission. Using an embedded case study design, where 'the case' examined was a new CRHT team set in its surrounding organisational environment, ethnographic data (with interviews predominating) were generated in a single site in Wales over 18 months from the middle of 2007. In a large-scale context favourable to local decision-making, and against a background of a partial and disputed evidence base, the move to establish the new standalone service was contested. Whilst users valued the work of the team, and local practitioners recognised the quality of its contribution, powerful effects were also triggered across the locality's horizontal interfaces. Participants described parts of the interconnected system being closed to release resources, staff gravitating to new crisis services leaving holes elsewhere, and the most needy service users being cared for by the least experienced workers. Some community mental health team staff described unexpected increases in workload, and disputes over eligibility for crisis care with implications for system-wide working relations. Detailed data extracts are used to illustrate these connections and consequences. Concluding lessons are drawn on the use of evidence to inform policy, on the significance of local contexts and system interfaces, and on anticipating the unexpected at times of change.

Giving a fig about roles: policy, context and work in community mental health care

Across the UK, mental health professionals are strongly objecting to threats to their roles. Against this background we use ethnographic data from a study of roles and responsibilities in community care, undertaken across two contrasting sites in Wales, to demonstrate how work is sensitive to local organizational features and to show how gaps can grow between the public claims professions make about their contributions and the actual roles which their members fulfil in the workplace. We reveal how, in one of our two research sites, immediate contextual features shaped the work of nurses and social workers towards the fulfilment of expanded packages of activity. We then show how subsequent policy (including 'new ways of working'), combined with new pressures arising from the economic downturn, carry the potential to accelerate the wider creation of workplaces of this type. We examine some implications of these processes for nurses and others, and for the system of mental health care as a whole, and conclude with a call for closer attention to be paid to the potential, wider, impact of current developments.

Where the wicked problems are: the case of mental health

OBJECTIVE

To use system ideas and the concept of 'wicked problems' to frame examination of a decade-and-a-half of UK mental health policy.

METHODS

Theoretically informed policy analysis.

RESULTS

Modern health care is complex, and mental health care particularly so. In the UK the mental health system has also become a policymaking priority. Features of this system mean that many of the problems policymakers face are of the 'wicked' variety. Wicked problems are resistant. Problem formulations and their solutions are contestable. Solutions which have 'worked' in one setting may not 'work' in another, and evidence to guide change is open to challenge. Actions trigger waves with widespread system consequences. In the case of the UK's mental health field significant shifts have taken place in formulations of 'the problem' to which actions have been directed. These have included assessments of community care failure, formulations emphasising problems with the professions and, most recently, the need for action to promote mental health and wellbeing.

CONCLUSIONS

In their efforts to secure improvement in a neglected field UK policymakers have unleashed a torrent of top-down actions. Attention needs to be paid to constructing strong, system-wide, partnerships and to examining the cumulative impact of policy actions.