How to join
The scheme is open to adult community mental health services. Registrations are open and they are accepted throughout the year.
In order to register, please fill out the ACOMHS joining form here and send it to acomhs@rcpsych.ac.uk
Information required for registration:
- Contact details for the service, including a named primary contact
- Invoicing details, including contact details and a Purchase Order number
After registration is complete, the ACOMHS team will liaise with you about next steps
What is the accreditation scheme?
- It is an initiative from the Royal College of Psychiatrists Centre for Quality Improvement. It aims to help community mental health services in the UK to focus on and improve quality of care, as well as awarding accreditation to services that meet sufficient standards.
- It involves a process of self- and peer-review against our standards, the results of which will be reviewed by a multidisciplinary committee.
- The standards have been developed in conjunction with a panel of experts in community mental health services, including service users.
Who can join?
- If you work in a UK community mental health service for adults, then your service is eligible to join the programme.
- The standards focus on the core functions of a community mental health team. This means that both working-age adult teams and specialist teams such as those for older adults, rehabilitation, forensic, and so on, can join the programme. However, at present ACOMHS is not able to review the specialist aspects of such teams, just the aspects of community working which are common to all community mental health services.
- If you work in an Early Intervention in Psychosis service, please see the Early Intervention in Psychosis Network (EIPN).
Please note: As part of the assessment process, we will review your staffing and processes and therefore if you work in a service that includes multiple teams, we will assess each team separately.
If you are unsure whether your team counts as a single or multiple, please contact us.
How much does it cost?
The programme runs on subscription fees from members; therefore there is an annual subscription fee for each service wishing to participate in the programme.
The cost of the programme is £2300 + VAT per service, per year.
Please note: The subscription fee applies per team or per service as individual teams/services will each be reviewed separately. Therefore if you have multiple teams or services in your Trust they will each need to sign up separately. If you are unsure as to whether your service qualifies as single or multiple services, please contact the ACOMHS team before subscribing.
The College Centre for Quality Improvement is cost-neutral, so the majority of your subscription fee goes towards the cost of organising your peer review visit and other benefits such as free training and forum events; the rest is used in administration of the process.