How Satisfied Are Local General Practitioners, Who Are Part of the Brompton and South Kensington Primary Care Networks, With Communications About Patients Referred to the Mental Health Triage and Assessment Team?

Abstract

Aims

The Triage and Assessment Team (T&AT) at South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre have conducted a research project to assess our written communication with General Practitioners (GPs) in primary care. We are responsible for screening and assessing new patients referred by GPs to the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre community mental health team (CMHT) department.The aim is to ensure all patients referred from primary care, receive care from the most appropriate health professional(s) in the timeliest way and that we communicate with their referrer in a timely and helpful manner. We aim to deliver a service that is safe, effective and helpful to patients, carers and their referrers. The purpose of this study is to understand the referrers’ experience of our communications with them when they refer to the T&AT.

Methods

A pre-intervention survey was sent out in November 2022 to GPs who work and are part of the Brompton and South Kensington primary care networks (PCNs).

We received an equal number of responses from Brompton and South Kensington GPs respectively. Quantitative and qualitative data were both collected. We had a cross section of respondents including trainees, salaried GPs and partners.

Results

From the quantitative data, the majority of respondents reported they were reasonably satisfied with our communication with respect to timeliness, clarity and clinical relevance of our communication.

Respondents were less satisfied with the balance struck between clinical detail on the one hand and recommendations for the mental health shared care plan.

A qualitative analysis of respondents all free text comments and identified three main themes: the local referral pathway, the use of SystmOne computer software programme, and recommendations for improving communications between GPs and the T&AT at CMHT.

Conclusion

We have acknowledged concerns about the complex mental health referral pathway together with suggestions about improving the functionality of SystmOne across the GP and CMHT interface into the regular discussions we have with our respective PCNs.

The Triage and Assessment Team are designing improvements to the consistency, timeliness and relevance of our GP communications.

Once these improvements have been implemented, we will send out a post-intervention survey to GPs and reassess their satisfaction levels with our new mode of communication.