Our products and services

We develop guidelines for professionals that outline the standards for providing care and services to people with a particular condition or need, and in certain circumstances or settings, based on evidence.

We’ve developed national guidelines for organisations such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and international guidelines, such as for the government in Ukraine. See our published guidelines.

We develop frameworks that outline the knowledge, skills and values that professionals need to provide effective care and support in particular roles or settings. 

We’ve published competence frameworks for: 

• eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy
  
• individual placement and support
• inpatient mental health care for children and young people
• mental health peer support work
• Physician Associates in mental health
• self-harm and suicide prevention.

Access these frameworks and their supporting documents at competence frameworks.

We work with teams in mental health services to help them implement changes to address key safety challenges and facilitate the sharing of learning. 

The key safety challenges we have focused on are: 

• reducing restrictive practices
• sexual safety
• suicide prevention national transformation programme. 

We also run collaboratives on advancing mental health equality and enjoying work, and on improving mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Find out more about our quality improvement collaboratives.

• recommendations to improve staff health and wellbeing
• a systematic review of the literature related to mental health problems and social mobility
• an evaluation of IAPT services for people with long-term conditions
• ongoing evaluations of physical activity in IAPT and of the Safety in Mental Health Settings training programme.

We develop care pathways, frameworks and implementation guidance. They help mental health service providers design and improve mental health services on a local and national level.

We’ve published guidance for specific mental health service settings including:

• community mental health care
• perinatal services 
• eating disorders services for all ages
• liaison mental health services.

We’ve also published guidance on how to improve core aspects of mental health services by working co-productively and advancing mental health equality.

See our service design and development guidance.