Quality improvement programmes

The NCCMH run a number of quality improvement programmes around mental health patient safety.

For more information about all of our quality improvement programmes, please see below.

The Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme (MHSIP) team met with NHS trusts providing core mental health services in England throughout 2018 and 2019. The MHSIP team, consisting of programme leads, National Advisers and Expert by Experience Advisers, worked with trusts to help them understand their safety priorities and supported them to begin working towards making measurable improvements. 

Our MHSIP team engaged with trusts, along with NHS Improvement and Care Quality Commission regional teams, to co-produce a safety improvement plan which: identified the safety priorities and assets in the trust, the support that NHSI and the MHSIP could provide and the respective responsibilities of NHSI, the MHSIP and the Trust in that plan.

Programme documents:

If you have any queries about the programme, please email us. 

Programme end date: This programme ended in March 2020. 

The Reducing Restrictive Practice collaborative gave ward-level teams the chance to work with leading mental health QI experts and our QI coaches, and to share learning with other teams in this area.

For further information on the programme as well as links to resources, please visit the Reducing Restrictive Practice page.

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to hold the final learning set in April 2020. As a result, we will be hosting a final virtual event for wards who took part in the project to reflect on their learning and celebrate the work they’ve done. The event will take place on 10 September 2020 and wards will receive information from their QI coaches on how to attend.

Final results and learning from the collaborative will be shared on our website later this year. 

Programme end date: The Reducing Restrictive Practice Programme has now ended.

The Sexual Safety Collaborative is part of a wider Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme (MHSIP) which was established by NHS Improvement (NHSI), in partnership with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), in response to a request made by the Secretary of State.

The Sexual Safety Collaborative has been established in response to the CQC report on Sexual Safety on Mental Health Wards and aims to meet a number of objectives:

  • Produce a set of standards around sexual safety during the mental health and learning disability inpatient pathways (including a strategy to measure and support quality improvement)
  • Run a national quality improvement (QI) collaborative to support inpatient mental health teams in every mental health trust in England to use QI to improve sexual safety on their wards.
  • Produce a library of resources, building on best practice to support the work of mental health trusts to improve sexual safety.

The national quality improvement collaborative launched on 21 October 2019. For further information on the programme as well as links to resources, please visit the Sexual Safety Collaborative page. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the QI collaborative and the publication of the standards were postponed. Both parts of the programme resumed in September 2020.

The standards for sexual safety have now been published: Sexual Safety Collaborative - Standards and Guidance. For any questions relating to the standards, please contact the Project Manager at Dominique.Gardner@rcpsych.ac.uk. 

 Programme end date: September 2021

The Suicide Prevention National Transformation Programme was established in response to a national commitment to reduce deaths by suicide by 10%, by 2020/21.

The NCCMH, commissioned by NHS England and Improvement, now supports Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships across England to improve quality and safety and support local plans to reduce suicide, in partnership with the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH).

For more information, please visit the Suicide Prevention National Transformation Programme page.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) and Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI) have launched a brand new national Quality Improvement (QI) collaborative to support wellbeing and enjoying work in teams across health services in the UK. The work is supported by the College’s wellbeing and quality improvement committees.

The aim of the enjoying work collaborative will be to improve wellbeing and support teams to measure and make changes to enhance everyone’s experience at work. The collaborative will use the same methodology as the national QI collaboratives run by the NCCMH on reducing restrictive practice (showing an aggregate reduction of 15% across participating wards) and sexual safety. It will use the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) Joy in Work framework and will incorporate learning from Trusts in England who have improved wellbeing based on this framework.

For further information, please see the Enjoying Work webpage. 

The Royal College of Psychiatrists are excited to be launching a brand new quality improvement collaborative aimed at supporting mental health care providers to reduce mental health inequalities in their local areas. This collaborative, part of the RCPsych Equality Action Plan, is a fantastic opportunity for organisations to access expert support and guidance to tackle a difficult but extremely important area in the push for better mental health care for all. 

Participating organisations will receive support to implement the Advancing Mental Health Equality resource using a tried and tested quality improvement methodology

For more information, please visit the Advancing Mental Health Equality Collaborative webpage. 

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