The principles that underpin our work

The National Audit of Psychological Therapies is an initiative of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Centre for Quality Improvement, which has been carrying out national audits for nearly 10 years.

The principles that underpin the work of the CCQI are:

• Focused on excellence:  We believe that all services for people with mental health problems should provide high quality care.  We seek to work in ways that support and enable services with development needs to improve and those that are performing well to aspire to excellence. 

• User centred:  We believe that the experience of people using services is key to the design and delivery of high quality care.  For this reason, we seek to work closely with people who have real experience of using services, their carers and representative organisations.

     o   Service users have been involved in the design of the National Audit, for example the service user questionnaire;

     o   There are also service user organisations represented on our steering group which are working with us to engage service users in  the audit process;     

o   Service users have provided direct feedback about their experiences through the service user questionnaire. A service user researcher also analysed the qualitative   data from this questionnaire.

• Aligned with the performance management and regulatory framework: We know that teams and organisations need to be able to demonstrate the quality of the care they provide.  Our work is aligned with the performance management systems and recognised by the organisations that regulate health services.

• Locally owned:  We believe that real improvements can only be achieved when those who need to make change happen are fully involved.  The audit programme is led by front-line staff, engages senior service managers and involves patients and their carers.

• Multi-disciplinary:  We know that providing excellent services does not depend on one professional group. This programme is endorsed by and run in partnership with a wide range of professional bodies and service user organisations.

          Organisations which are involved in this project