Improving referrals to community mental health services in the liaison setting

The East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) psychiatric liaison team (PLT) at Newham University Hospital (NUH) is responsible for referring adult patients they have reviewed, to community mental health services on discharge where appropriate, and also notifying their existing team for follow-up on discharge when already under the care of community service. This should then lead to the appropriate ongoing management of the patient’s mental health needs in terms of continued support and assessment of risk, further assessment of the mental state, titration of medications and prevention of further admissions.

Following an ELFT incident review where it was noted that a patient was not referred to community services on discharge, a retrospective case note review was undertaken over an 11-month period to define the baseline efficacy of current referrals. Quality improvement (QI) methods were used to understand the issue, create a more robust process and measure the improvements made. We set up regular QI Project meetings and we used driver diagram, process mapping, PDSA cycles and run charts. The change ideas included moving from a whiteboard-based system to using Microsoft Excel, CRS millennium patient lists, Microsoft TEAMS and additional admin support. We studied the results for the following 14 months.