9 August 2023

The ReFoCuS Community Forensic Service for Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster (KCW) have succeeded in their aim to improve annual physical health assessment rates for patients living with severe mental illnesses (SMI).

The project, which was part of CNWL’s Quality Improvement Collaborative, will increase their service’s average percentage of completed physical health assessments by 20%. The Community Forensic Service also aspired to help improve their patients’ engagement with physical health clinics, and to improve communication between their team and primary healthcare colleagues.

People with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) have a higher mortality risk due to physical illness, thus making it imperative for physical health screenings to be accessible. Through their collaborative effort the team determined that a streamlined system was necessary for the improvement of their services. A physical health clinic booking ledger has been made available through SystemOne (the NHS’s electronic clinical records system) to facilitate bookings. Furthermore, psychoeducation has been provided to patients which teaches the importance of physical health monitoring. You can see the team’s detailed ideas and analysis of the project here.

The team successfully increased the percentage of completed physical health assessments from an average of 57% to an average of 86%. Overall, there has been a 51% increase over the course of the year, successfully beating their original goal of 20%. They now have a much more effective, streamlined process for completing assessments.

The team are hoping to reduce the number of people who do not attend appointments by bringing in text messaging through the clinical system (SystmOne) that sends reminders to patients prior to their appointment. They are also exploring ways of improving physical health training amongst all staff by incorporating it into staff inductions and developing a Health and Wellbeing group for patients.

Congratulations to KCW’s ReFoCuS Community Forensic Service for these fantastic results.