Mental
Health

Across our Independent Hospitals we use the Accreditation for Inpatient Mental Health Services (AIMS) standards for rehabilitation to improve the quality of care for patients with complex and enduring mental illness.

These quality standards were developed by the College Centre for Quality Improvement and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, along with users of services and carers. They consider a person’s admission and discharge out of hospital, risk and overall care and treatment.

They emphasise the quality of care in the following areas to:

• Ensure patients have access to socially inclusive community services
• Learn and relearn living skills
• Help patients gain confidence about making choices and decisions
• Promote recovery: so patients can go on to live as independently and autonomously as possible
• Have greater involvement: patients and carers are involved in any important decision making that affects their interests

The standards are aligned with CQC regulations and NICE guidelines and membership is valued by CQC.

The Recovery Star is an evidenced-based tool for supporting and measuring change in working age adults experiencing mental health problems.

It is an outcomes tool, enabling organisations to measure and summarise change in patients. In Alternative Futures Group, our mental health hospitals use this tool to measure the progress of each person who enters our services.

The star covers ten areas from which the patient can easily review the progress they are making. Any drop-backs are picked up early with a plan put in place to address them.

Reports can be shared with patients and carers where applicable, as well as the Integrated Care Boards who commission our services.

There are times when a restrictive intervention needs to be used in order to protect the patient or others from harm. We ensure any restriction imposed on someone is the least restrictive and proportionate, within the appropriate legal framework and for the shortest time possible.

We are aligned to the Restraint Reduction Network (RRN) to ensure our policies are based on up to date evidence and national guidelines, such as ‘Mental Health Units use of Force Act 2018 & Mental Health Units use of Force Act Statutory Guidance 2018’ and ‘Towards Safer Services’ 2022. As part of our reduction strategy, our hospitals are using the Safewards model which aims to reduce conflict and containment by everyone working together.

Our in-house trainers are fully licensed to deliver restraint reduction training and are affiliated with Elysium Healthcare who are accredited with the RRN. Our training is regularly observed by BILD Associated Certified Training, who are a charity licensed by the RRN to certify training.