Management by geographical area or management specialised by disorder? A mixed-methods evaluation of the effects of an organisational intervention on secondary mental health care for common mental disorder

Tulloch AD, Soper B, Görzig A, Pettit S, Koeser L, Polling C, Watson A, Khondoker M, Rose D, McCrone P, Tylee A, Thornicroft G
Record ID 32016000358
English
Authors' objectives: In 2010, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) established a programme replacing the borough directorates responsible for adult mental health services with three Clinical Academic Groups (CAGs), each of which took on a subset of adult services straddling all four boroughs. Care pathways were also introduced. We studied the Mood Anxiety and Personality CAG, which took on assessment and treatment teams and psychotherapy services. We aimed (1) to understand the CAG programme using realistic evaluation and (2) to assess whether or not it led to changes in activity and health-care quality.
Authors' recommendations: SLaM's CAG programme had clear effects on service reconfiguration at team level, with high-level pathways changing the ways that managers conceptualised their work. However, our quantitative work indicated no clear effects on quality. Thinking about how to use care pathways in ways that complement 'high-level' pathways by supporting the delivery of evidence-based treatments is a strategy that could help SLaM and other providers. Future research should look at the genesis of organisational change and how this is altered through implementation; it should also look at the effectiveness of care pathways in mental health services.
Details
Project Status: Completed
Year Published: 2016
English language abstract: An English language summary is available
Publication Type: Not Assigned
Country: England, United Kingdom
MeSH Terms
  • Humans
  • Disease Management
  • Mental Health
  • Organizations
  • Psychotic Disorders
Contact
Organisation Name: NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research programme
Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK
Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Copyright: Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO
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