Demand, Capacity and Flow
Demand, Capacity and Flow (DCF) is a quality improvement (QI) collaborative, run by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) that aims to support mental health services across the UK to improve the demand, capacity and flow of their services.
Following a successful first cohort of the DCF collaborative, the NCCMH are pleased to be recruiting to a second wave, launching in January 2025.
The design of the collaborative and support offered will be based on our learning from the first wave, which finished in July 2024.
NCCMH QI Coaches supported community and inpatient teams to understand the demand for their services, develop and test their change ideas to improve flow, reduce waiting lists and manage demand in creative ways.
Teams in cohort one saw improvements in the form of a reduced wait time for those waiting for assessments, first appointments and specialist support.
Teams were also able to reduce the number of missed appointments, offer support to people on long wait lists and make services feel more accessible. The collaborative also provided participating teams the opportunity for peer-to-peer sharing and learning through regular in-person events.
Based on our learning from delivering Wave 1 and teams/services that particularly benefited from the work, we would like to focus on specific specialities and invite the following service types to apply for Wave 2:
- CAMHS
- talking therapies
- psychological therapies in SMI
- autism services.
If you think your service(s) would benefit from taking part in this collaborative, please complete our expression of interest form and you can read more about wave 1 of the DCF Collaborative on our DCF pages.