Health professionals gain accreditation at Teesside University

Around 800 mental health workers who help older people have completed Excellence in Practice Accreditation Scheme (EPAS) accreditation at Teesside University.

They are all members of locality teams who look after MHSOP (Mental Health Services for Older People) for Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.

The teams work across the Easington, Hartlepool, Stockton, Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland areas. They completed the EPAS programme with Level 5 accreditation, achieving some of the highest scores ever attained.

EPAS measures standard of practice and helps practitioners to demonstrate how they are providing good practice and quality service. Each locality has separate teams responsible for in-patient care, community mental health, care home liaison, acute care liaison and young onset dementia.

The MHSOP division is unique in that all the teams working within a locality were accredited as a whole unit against the EPAS standards. This was an unprecedented approach as previously other organisations have been accredited as smaller or single teams.

Among those who have completed EPAS accreditation is Dr Sarah Dexter-Smith, a consultant clinical psychologist and associate clinical director at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.

She said: 'We've recently made many improvements to mental health services for older people in Teesside, resulting in more people being cared for at home and reduced waiting times for appointments.

'External assessments like EPAS are an effective tool to help evidence and measure the success of such developments and the impact they’re having on our patients. It brought people together who wouldn’t normally work alongside one another, allowing us to share and evaluate best practice. The assessment also involved service users and carers so we could see the positive impact the work has had on their lives.'

Martin Barkley, Chief Executive of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'We aim to provide excellent, local mental health services and to work with people who use those services to continuously improve them. The Trust recognises the EPAS scheme as an effective tool to evidence, develop and share good practice and provide further opportunities to hear people’s experiences of using our inpatient and community environments.'

Rob McSherry, Professor of Nursing and Practice Development in the University’s School of Health & Social Care, said: 'One of my professional highlights at Teesside has been my involvement in developing and launching EPAS at the University. EPAS facilitates excellence in practice across a comprehensive set of measurable core standards derived from a professional peer review of best practice.

'All three Tees-wide locality teams to most recently complete EPAS accreditation achieved the highest standard on first accreditation, the first whole teams to do so. They also achieved the highest scores ever awarded in three of the EPAS standards.'

A celebration and review of the Excellence in Practice Accreditation Scheme was held at the University in June.

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