Richmond & Kingston Early Intervention Service Review - 2018
The EIS provides medication management and psychological therapies to patients and their families for people (18 - 65) who are experiencing their first episode of psychosis.
What we did
We asked patients and carers about their experiences of accessing the service and the quality of care provided. We also talked to staff about how they are supported in their roles by the Trust and what are relationships are like with outside services such as GPs and social services and how this impacts patient care.
Summary
Patients and carers were largely very satisfied with the overall care they received and highlighted the following as being essential to their positive experience:
- Timely access to assessment and interventions.
- Clear and consistent communication throughout the team during and outside of appointments.
- High quality content and delivery of psychological therapies which enabled patients to navigate their professional and personal lives more easily.
- Carers particularly praised the open and transparent attitude from EIS staff which they felt played an important role in meeting their needs as a carer.
For staff, regular multidisciplinary team meetings provided a stable underlying structure to access support and an appropriate outlet to raise concerns or queries. However, excessive documentation and a preoccupation with nonclinical tasks were highlighted as concerns which could affect the standards of care they provide to patients.
