Local mental health teams accredited with the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Two teams from the local mental health and learning disabilities trust have been accredited with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) community mental health teams in Grantham & Sleaford and Lincoln South have achieved the Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Accreditation for Community Mental Health Teams (ACOMHS). 

For the last 12 months Christine Coupar and Anne Harris, Service Development Leads and Quality Assurance Leads for the Adult Community Division have been working with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the community mental health teams.

All eight of LPFT’s community mental health teams have been signed up to the ACOMHS accreditation programme.

The accreditation programme works with staff to assure and improve the quality of community mental health services for people with mental health problems and their carers.

The programme engages staff in a review, in which good practice and high quality care are recognised and teams receive support to identify and address areas for improvement.

Christine Coupar, Service Development Lead said: “This is a great achievement for the Trust and the teams, as it demonstrates the quality of care that the community mental health teams deliver to service users and carers. 

“We are the eleventh trust in the country to gain accreditation and we have two teams accredited so far. We are now working with the remaining six CMHTs towards their accreditation.”

Anne Harris, also a Service Development Lead added, “The teams have achieved the accreditation from the Royal College of Psychiatrists against the 31 standards. We will continue to build on this to improve our service.”

This initiative from the Royal College of Psychiatrists Centre for Quality Improvement aims to help community mental health services focus on and improve quality of care and awards accreditation to services that meet sufficient standards.

Chris Higgins, Interim Director of Operations said: “I am delighted that two of our community mental health teams have achieved this accreditation. They have worked very hard in the process and accreditations are reassuring for service users, carers and staff.”