Local mental health team accredited with the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) Lincoln North community mental health has achieved the Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Accreditation for Community Mental Health Teams (ACOMHS).

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

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

The accreditation programme helps 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 Manager said: “This is a great achievement for the Trust and the team, 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 four teams accredited so far. We are now working with the remaining five community mental health teams towards their accreditation.”

Anne Harris, Quality Assurance Leads 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, Director of Operations said: “I am delighted that our community mental health team in Lincoln has achieved this accreditation. They have worked very hard and accreditations are reassuring for service users, carers and staff.”