Adding Value – Making Ideas Shine Brighter: Making Patient Information Accessible
The simplest of ideas can have the biggest impact and the idea submitted by Tina McCann, Occupational Therapist and Mark Ayling, Community Psychiatric Nurse and supported by Clinical Psychologist Clare Sharkey from Trafford Mental Health Services, may seem straightforward, but will have a huge impact in terms of accessibility to services for those who English is not their first language.
Tina and Mark both found reaching out to service users who do not understand English problematic. If the service user does not answer the service’s phone call, they will write out to the individual, asking them to make contact so an appointment can be made. However, these letters are templates which are generated by the Trust’s clinical information system, PARIS and are always written in English.
Tina and Mark have suggested that these templates could be produced in other languages such as Polish, Punjabi, Gujarati and Spanish, to support accessibility to services by people who understand these languages.
The impact of not doing this can be severe, as Mark points out, “If we don’t hear back from someone within seven days of a standard ‘opt in’ In letter, we assume people do not require a service. We notify the persons GP by sending a copy of the opt in letter to the GP and send a discharge letter to both parties if there is no response to the opt in.”
There are not many alternatives to this as Tina explains, “If we can’t reach service users by phone or letter and we are concerned the only option is to make an unscheduled visit. This is not always appropriate as we do not always have enough information about the patient history and the situation we are facing.”
So, how difficult is it to change the templates in PARIS, and give staff an option of languages when send out these first contact letters? Grace Birch, Associate Director of IM&T says this can be done, “The beauty of using such an advanced patient information system such as PARIS is that we can set up templates in different languages. We are now looking to work with our clinicians and services to look at how we can support the development of our letter templates and provide them in various languages which staff can select from as appropriate. This is a perfect example of how the Adding Value Programme can help improve things for staff and service users, saving time, resources, but most importantly, ensure no one misses out on vital mental health care.”
As a token of our thanks for submitting the idea, the team from Trafford were presented with a small hamper of tea, coffee, biscuits and of course, some Adding Value mugs! To submit your idea visit: https://dearauahotmail.sharepoint.com/SitePages/Adding-Value-%E2%80%93-Making-Your-Ideas-Shine-Brighter!.aspx
