The project title “Life Beyond the Cubicle” aims to emphasise the existence of individuals, families, and friends before and beyond consultations with healthcare professionals.
Through short film and audio scenarios and case studies, Life Beyond the Cubicle shows why it is so important to involve family and friends, helps clinicians reflect on why they don’t do so routinely, and how they can overcome these barriers. The co-creation process ensured that the resources are rooted in the lived experiences of patients, family carers and clinicians.
The resources have been welcomed by leading figures.
Components
The resources consist of two components:
- An eLearning resource designed to enable healthcare professionals working with adults to reflect on effective ways to engage families and friends when assessing and treating a service user during an acute mental health episode. The emphasis is on encouraging and helping healthcare professionals to listen to families, learn from them, involve them, inform them, and support them. There are a series of modules, using films and audio as stimulus materials, designed to work through the key challenges of engaging families.
- A handbook for facilitated group-based training using the stimulus materials from the eLearning package. This aspect of training enables richer dialogue and discourse between healthcare professionals to promote deeper reflections on experience and consideration of the facilitators and barriers to effective and authentic family involvement, with a view to taking positive action when back in practice.
Modules
The eLearning materials consist of the following modules:
- Introduction (includes guidance on how to use this resource)
- Module 1: Why do families and friends matter?
- Module 2: Assumptions and expertise
- Module 3: Feelings and fears
- Module 4: Confidentiality and Information Sharing
- Module 5: Safety planning
- Resources for family and friends
The modules are interactive. Each module includes films, audio, and scenarios, along with questions for reflection and pointers to good practice.
Testing and Evaluation
The resources were tested in 11 NHS Trusts:
- Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health NHS Partnership Trust
- Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- East London NHS Foundation Trust
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- North London Mental Health NHS Partnership Trust
- Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
- Royal Sussex County Hospital
- South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
Margaret Rioga and Nicola Shepherd of the Institute of Health and Social Care at Buckinghamshire New University led an independent evaluation. They found that 90% of clinicians said the resources were relevant to their practice. And 77% said that they planned to make changes to how they worked with patients and carers as a result of working through the modules. Clinicians who tested them said they transformed how they think about family members and this improved care for patients, and supported their families, keeping everyone safer.
The resources are accessible free of charge to staff working in health and social care via the NHS eLearning platform.
Making Families Count can provide bespoke training for your organisation using the Life Beyond the Cubicle handbook. For more information, please contact us.