Twilight Testing: Empowering Engagement with Life Skills Recovery Workers Shift Innovations

By Chloe Preston (Improvement Advisor) 

As part of the Trust-wide inpatient quality and safety programme, three wards in Bedford and Luton have been testing different shift patterns for their Life Skills Recovery Workers (LSRWs). 

Ward staff recognised that many of their incidents occur in the afternoon and evening, when there are fewer activities for service users to participate in. The project team hypothesised that if LSRWs’ shifts worked during these hours, therapeutic engagement with service users would increase and incidents would consequently decrease.  

In the month that Onyx and Crystal ward tested LSRWs working 4pm-12am, the number of incidents reduced to 6 per month, from an average of 9 per month. Anecdotal evidence from ward staff suggests that more structured daily routines has contributed to improved morale and engagement among both service users and staff. Additionally, staff members noted that the new shift arrangement has aided the management of new admissions and the facilitation of Psychology group sessions. Townsend Court are currently testing 2pm-10pm LSRW shifts, yielding similar positive feedback from both staff and service users, while also reducing payments for unsociable hours. 

Fig. 1: A rota designed for Life Skills Recovery Workers twilight shifts on Townsend Court