PB Handbook for Psychiatric Trainees
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
British Journal of Psychiatry Advances in Psychiatric Treatment All RCPsych Journals
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Psychiatric Bulletin (2007) 31: 345-347. doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.107.014837
© 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit an eLetter
Right arrow View responses
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by O’Keeffe, N.
Right arrow Articles by Ranjith, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by O’Keeffe, N.
Right arrow Articles by Ranjith, G.

Benchmarking a liaison psychiatry service: a prospective 6-month study of quality indicators

Nikki O’Keeffe, Senior House Officer, Umesh Sira Ramaiah, Senior House Officer, Erum Nomani, Senior House Officer, Michelle Fitzpatrick, Liaison Psychiatry Nurse and Gopinath Ranjith, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist

Department of Liaison Psychiatry, Adamson Centre for Mental Health, St Thomas’ Hospital, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE17EH, email: g.ranjith{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk

Declaration of interest

None.

AIMS AND METHOD

There are no national standards to evaluate the quality of delivery of inpatient liaison psychiatry services in general hospitals in the UK. In order to benchmark our service against best international practice, we adapted quality indicators from two peer-reviewed studies from Australia and Switzerland and monitored our performance standards over a period of 6 months.

RESULTS

There were 145 patients assessed over the study period. We set a priori target of 90% achievement on indicators in the areas of timeliness of response to all referrals, timeliness of response to referrals following self-harm and quality of supervision of junior medical staff attaining 93.8, 87.5 and 89.6% respectively.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

We demonstrated that we provided a reasonably responsive consultation–liaison service with high levels of supervision of junior staff. National bodies should develop benchmarks in this area so that services can demonstrate the quality of their service and learn from others’ good practice.




This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Psychiatr. Bull.Home page
J. Bolton and N. Kaneza
Benchmarking a liaison psychiatry service
Psychiatr. Bull., December 1, 2007; 31(12): 467 - 467.
[Full Text] [PDF]

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Liaison Benchmarks: More attention needed
Dr. Mukesh Kripalani, et al.
PB Online, 11 Oct 2007 [Full text]

HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
British Journal of Psychiatry Advances in Psychiatric Treatment All RCPsych Journals
Copyright © 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists.