Innovation
The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery and Lewisham Healthcare collaborated in an older adult physical care project for Pre-registration Mental Health students. The initiative commenced in February 2012 and offered all First Year King’s Mental Health students with either South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust or South West London and St.George’s NHS Trust as their principal placement trust, the opportunity to gain four weeks clinical experience in an older adult clinical setting. This was well evaluated by students and used an original approach to course delivery to meet current service needs.
This has been further developed to form a core module Physical healthcare for people with mental health problems. The aim of this module is provide the knowledge and skills needed to assess, plan, prioritise and integrate physical health care for patients with mental health problems. On completion of this module the student will be able to:
- recognise the importance of physical health care across the lifespan in the mental health setting, including clients with learning disabilities and those requiring midwifery care;
- understand the importance of engagement within the context of physical care in a mental health setting as part of a holistic assessment;
- apply knowledge and skills in order to undertake a physical assessment of an individual with mental health problems;
- collect, interpret, analyse and formulate a plan of care from data, and evaluate the plan;
- assimilate knowledge from a variety of relevant sources recognising the role of the ‘expert patient’ and other relevant parties;
- demonstrate confidence and competence in their own ability to recognise a client’s physical health needs and the need for specialist referral.
What prompted innovation?
The module has been developed in response to requests from healthcare partners as well as key policy documents, for example Department of Health. (2006) From Values to Action: The Chief Nursing Officer’s review of mental health nursing. HMSO: London. It remains topical in the current context of Patients First and Foremost (DH 2013).
What makes innovation different?
The need to address physical healthcare needs for people with mental health is not in and of itself innovative, however by including a module focusing on physical health within the curriculum the profile of physical care is raised. The use of expert patients who will share with students their experiences of physical healthcare as people with mental health problems provides an opportunity for students to develop their knowledge, skills and values within an environment which supports a questioning approach and will highlight the need to consider physical health.
Changes in practice
Students who participated in the pilot evaluated it positively and presented to the trusts using poetry, photography and sculpture. As a result of working in the secondary care environment during their mental health training and reflecting on the process both the qualified staff and the students were able to reconsider the importance of both physical and mental health across all care settings.
Impact
See above
Dissemination
This has now been integrated in to the Year two of the BSc Nursing with registration as a mental health nurse programme. The students who took part in the pilot have fed back to the trusts.