Improving the quality of handover in a liaison psychiatry team

"Without guidelines handover between shifts is of a poor quality, and often lacks key information to allow colleagues to identify patients and prioritise need. Education of those performing these handovers did not produce any benefits, either immediately following its delivery or in longer term follow up. The implementation of a template to aid clinicians in recording this data did produce improvements and received positive feedback from doctors."

Improving the quality of handover in a liaison psychiatry team
J Brook, M Amaro Calcia
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2016;5: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u206492.w3442

Read more here.

Psychological Medicine in Bart’s: improving access and awareness

"a large number of general hospital patients have a mental disorder, mental ill health impedes recovery from physical illness and mental disorders are often unrecognised in patients with physical illness. By improving the quality of our liaison service we hope that we can achieve better integration within the medical teams and thus tackle the aforementioned problems."

Psychological Medicine in Bart’s: improving access and awareness
A Pavlidou
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u206661.w2871

Read more here.

Liaison psychiatry - the way ahead

"The study set out to identify how liaison psychiatry can most effectively contribute to the Government’s quality, innovation, productivity and prevention (QIPP) challenge of improving health outcomes while also reducing healthcare costs."

Liaison psychiatry - the way ahead: issue 249
Mental Health Network
NHS Confederation
November 2012

Read more here.