Who we are and what we do

QNPICU adopts a supportive, multi-disciplinary approach to quality improvement in PICU services at ward level. We serve to identify areas for improvement through a culture of openness and enquiry, adopting a model of engagement rather than inspection. QNPICU facilitates quality improvement through a comprehensive peer review process, celebrating and sharing good practice as identified by staff, patients and carers. Our aim is to support PICUs to provide timely and purposeful admissions to patients in a safe and therapeutic environment, recognising high levels of compliance with the standards through accreditation.

Benefits of the review process

• A wide range of stakeholders are involved, including staff from all professional backgrounds, service users and their carers and partner organisations.
• Development support: services are supported to identify and address areas for improvement.
• Active ongoing network support: members are supported to share best practice, seek advice and pool learning through a regular newsletter, email discussion group, annual conference and publication of resources on a members-only website.
• Sharing good practice: services are engaged with a network of peers, enabling sharing of good practice and providing a forum for advice and information sharing.
• Personal development: individuals receive training and are able to improve their professional practice.
• Spread of learning within the organisation: learning and innovations arising from the process are often spread beyond the participating service to other services within the organisation.
• Benchmarking and trend analysis: we produce national aggregated and thematic reports enabling services to benchmark their own performance against other services, and identifying trends in service provision.

QNPICU currently offers two types of membership: developmental and accreditation. Both the accreditation and developmental memberships have a self-review and peer-review phase. All new QNPICU members will begin on the Developmental membership. Accreditation will be suggested to members when they are meeting a certain number of type 1 standards. See below for the review phases:

Phase 1: Self-review

During this phase, the service will undertake a self-review, including a series of surveys for staff, patients and carers. Additionally, services will complete a case note audit of patient records. 

These enable the multi-disciplinary team to review their local procedures and practices against the standards and, if necessary, to make the changes required to achieve accreditation. The self-review will take place either over two months (developmental membership) or three months (accreditation membership). A summary of the results from the self-review forms the basis of the discussion at the peer-review visit.

Phase 2: Peer-review visit

The peer-review visit takes places up to four weeks after you have completed your self-review. A team of up to four professionals (comprising of staff from other member services), a service user and/or carer representative, and a Network representative will undertake a peer-review visit. In addition to validating your self-review, the peer-review provides an opportunity for discussion, sharing of ideas and for the visiting team to offer advice and support.

Phase 3: Accreditation decision (accreditation membership)

Information from the self- and peer-review is compiled into a summary report which is verified by the peer-review team and the service before being submitted to the Accreditation Committee (AC). If services are not reaching a certain threshold of type 1 standards, they may be deferred to the developmental membership. The committee makes a decision about the service’s accreditation.

There are three categories of accreditation status:

• Accredited
• Accreditation deferred
• Not accredited

Services that cannot achieve accreditation at the point of review but are expected to be able to do so in the near future are deferred for a time-limited period in which they must meet the necessary standards. Services can be presented to the AC up to three times within a 12 month period. Services must meet 100% of type 1 standards, 80% of type 2 standards and 60% of type 3 standards in order to be awarded accreditation. 

Accreditation is valid for up to three years, subject to satisfactory completion of an interim self-review.

Phase 3: Local report and benchmarking (developmental membership)

Information from the self- and peer-review is compiled into a local draft report which is verified by the peer-review team and the service. They will be given an opportunity to comment and provide further evidence before finalising the report. All final reports will be compiled into an annual aggregated report where services can benchmark.

Our Advisory Group

The Quality Network is governed by a group of professionals who represent key interests and areas of expertise in the field of psychiatric intensive care, as well as patients and carers who have experience of using these services. The group is chaired by Maria Ivanov, Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director (Priory Group) along with representatives from NHS England, CQC and other organisations.

Our Accreditation Committee

This is a group of professionals who work in member services, as well as patients and carers who have experience of using these services. The group’s role is to make decisions about accreditation on the basis of services’ reports and evidence. The committee is chaired by Sue Denison, Patient Representative (QNPICU), and comprises representatives from a range of member services from both the NHS and private sector.

Member services can engage in our peer-review or accreditation programme.

Take a look at the services currently working with us.

Please contact us if you'd like more information on the network or you'd like to join.

Kelly Rodriguez
Programme Manager
Email:  Kelly.Rodriguez@rcpsych.ac.uk
Tel: 0208 618 4063