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Mental Health Waiting Times Readiness Assessment
Working with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, we developed a rapid, on-site ‘readiness assessment’ for mental health waiting times improvement. The resulting roadmap helped the trust develop and implement a waiting times and data quality improvement plan, which was subsequently knowledge shared across the London region.
Our solution
- Designed and implemented a waiting times readiness assessment approach, based on information gathering and a desktop review of key data, documentation and reports.
- Set up 1:1 meetings with key performance and BI staff to understand and analyse current actual/ reported performance, data quality and plans.
- Met on site with nominated clinical, management and admin teams to understand the trust-level picture and triangulate with the experience of service staff.
- Provided constructive 1:1 feedback to key stakeholders including the SRO and service director, plus made time to engage with the wider clinical team to make the case for change together, with detailed explanation of recommendations and next steps.
Our impact
- Created a “supportive but directional” approach combined with “knowledge, understanding and empathy”, which led to a change in the language and the dynamics of the team, with real engagement between BI and the service and resulting improvements.
- An expert, external perspective gave the trust the tools and understanding to take action, leading to a step-change in data accuracy and the reported number of long waits.
- Bespoke recommendations formed the basis for the trust improvement plan, with the structure of the assessment process and resulting roadmap key to improvement in the trust.
