The group was delivered well and I enjoyed the doctor being present . The role-play scenarios including the professionals helped me to understand .”
Responsible Clinician , Sohail Zafar , Assistant Psychologist , Tanzeela Malik and Regional Lead Occupational Therapist , Fatema Meghjee , have been working on introducing an integrated intervention approach involving the multidisciplinary team at Raglan House , Cygnet Healthcare .
Raglan House is a high dependency inpatient rehabilitation service for women in Birmingham . It specialises in providing rehabilitation services for women who experience severe and enduring mental illnesses .
Our therapy-led interventions aim to effectively address the challenges caused by chronic mental health disorders , using clinical interventions to support women to enhance their personal skills and rebuild their lives .
Our care embraces a balanced approach to risk management and therapeutic expectation . Service users have access to a range of therapies and opportunities incorporated within individualised care plans informing their overall treatment pathway and clinical formulations .
Integrated multidisciplinary team working
Research evidence focusing on multidisciplinary team working suggests that having various members of the multidisciplinary team involved in therapeutic groups supports effective means of delivering comprehensive interventions to individuals with long-term mental health problems ( Campbell et al 1998 ).
Integrated multidisciplinary team interventions not only convey individual skills associated with particular disciplines , but also attitudes and values thath have a significant bearing on individual knowledge , behaviour and skills acquired to deliver group interventions ( Tyrer 1998 ).
These skills provide benefits such as continuity of care , the ability to take a comprehensive holistic view of a service user ’ s needs , the availability of a range of skills , willingness and ability to crosscover between disciplines , and mutual support and education to both service users and mental health professionals working within integrated multidisciplinary team interventions ( Campbell et al 1998 ).
Furthermore , integrated team working provides the skill range to meet the increasingly complex needs of service users who require a plethora of skills from different professionals ( Ovretveit 1993 ), providing a seamless service enhancing continuity of care and ensuring that all bio-psycho-sociocultural components of intervention and care are delivered ( Campbell et al 1998 ).
Collaborative needs-based assessment
An initial collaborative needs-based assessment was conducted , which included factors such as environment , social system , past adverse experiences , stage of education and physical health ( including current wellness and stress levels ), formulating a comprehensive individual profile of each attendee .
The aim of the analysis was to consider the impact and role of these variables in overall wellbeing , and in view of how these factors influence one another in relation to the content being explored .
Contributing multidisciplinary team members devised the content for each group within prescheduled meetings , offering their expertise and perspectives , allied with shared objectives .
Integrated multidisciplinary team interventions that have been facilitated at Raglan House include managing emotions , social skills , healthy relationships and mindfulness skills . The table summarises the contributions provided from each discipline , focusing on group objectives .
Facilitating the groups
Service users reported to have enjoyed the involvement of the multidisciplinary team in group interventions , providing feedback in community meeting forums . A number of service user comments were compiled , including :
• ‘ The group was delivered well and I enjoyed the doctor being present . The role-play scenarios including the professionals helped me to understand .’
• ‘ I enjoyed having different teams in the group , they got to know us and adapted the group to our needs using different skills .’
• ‘ It was nice , as you could see the doctor is just like us ; he ’ s a normal person and he was cracking jokes .’
• ‘ With everyone being there , they saw you outside a formal setting and you could have a discussion and share things that you may not have been able to in patient review meetings .’
The group was delivered well and I enjoyed the doctor being present . The role-play scenarios including the professionals helped me to understand .”
May 2023 OTnews 33