Quality standard

Quality statement 8: Moving between services

Quality statement 8: Moving between services

Quality statement

People receiving continuing support for self‑harm and moving between mental health services have a collaboratively developed plan describing how support will be provided during the transition.

Rationale

Moving to different mental health services (for example, from services for young people to services for adults) can be a difficult period for people who self‑harm. Unless there are plans to manage these transitions, people can feel isolated and unsupported, and be at increased risk of further self‑harm. It is important that people using services are involved in agreeing how their support will be managed and understand who they can contact in a crisis.

Quality measures

The following measures can be used to assess the quality of care or service provision specified in the statement. They are examples of how the statement can be measured, and can be adapted and used flexibly.

Structure

Evidence of local arrangements to ensure that providers collaboratively plan in advance and coordinate effectively when people who have self‑harmed move between mental health services.

Data source: No routinely collected national data for this measure has been identified. Data can be collected from information recorded locally by provider organisations.

Process

Proportion of people receiving continuing support for self‑harm and moving between mental health services who have a collaboratively developed plan describing how support will be provided during the transition.

Numerator – the number of people in the denominator with a collaboratively developed plan describing how support will be provided during the transition.

Denominator – the number of people receiving continuing support for self‑harm and moving between mental health services.

Data source: No routinely collected national data for this measure has been identified. Data can be collected from information recorded locally by healthcare professionals and provider organisations, for example from patient records.

What the quality statement means for different audiences

Service providers ensure that systems are in place to coordinate effectively with other providers when people who have self‑harmed move between mental health services.

Healthcare professionals ensure that people receiving continuing support for self‑harm and moving between mental health services have a collaboratively developed plan describing how support will be provided during the transition.

Commissioners ensure that they commission services that provide people receiving continuing support for self‑harm and moving between mental health services with a collaboratively developed plan describing how support will be provided during the transition.

People who are having long‑term support after self‑harming and are moving between mental health services agree a plan with their healthcare professionals that describes how they will be supported while they move from one service to another.

Definition of terms used in this quality statement

People receiving continuing support for self-harm and moving between mental health services

People who have carried out intentional self‑poisoning or injury, irrespective of the apparent purpose of the act, who are receiving longer‑term psychological treatment and management and are moving from child and adolescent to adult mental health services, or from one adult mental health service to another. This includes people with both single and recurrent episodes of self‑harm. It does not include people having immediate physical treatment or management for self‑harm in emergency departments. [Adapted from NICE's guideline on self-harm, terms used in this guideline; self-harm, and evidence review J, NICE's guideline on service user experience in adult mental health, recommendation 1.7.1, and expert opinion]