ELFT CAMHS Services Quality Conference

On Wednesday 28^th June 150 colleagues from across the Trust’s CAMHS services came together to dedicate time to further develop their understanding around capacity and demand issues. Identified as a priority area for the directorate, the aim of the day was to take a deep dive into understanding flow through the services, identify what works well, problem areas and bottlenecks.

The morning began with a creative session, full of musical instruments and arts and craft, to help the services think through what works well and what they are particularly proud in their services. Rounding off the morning Dr Navina Evans, trust CEO, delivered some words of encouragement and opened up the floor to questions from staff.

In the afternoon, teams got together and spent time understanding their services in depth using process mapping. With post-it notes flying everywhere, the teams began to discuss and explore problem areas and bottle necks in their treatment pathways.

An information disco, where staff rotated and connected in small groups, provided an interactive way of sharing learning between the different services. This helped the local services to identify similarities and differences in their pathways, share challenges, key themes and learn from each service about what has been previously tested and implemented.

As an important part of the directorates drive to improve, over the next few months CAHMS will be supported by the QI team to understand the problem more deeply and begin developing some targeted projects to tackle this.