Staying Connected While You Wait
Our Trust is working towards ensuring patients are seen in the most timely way possible – and supporting those who need to wait to be seen.
To address this, our Community Service Line is launching a pilot project aimed at service users who have been waiting 90 days or more for treatment in the community. The project, Staying Connected While You Wait, is part of a Quality Improvement collaborative designed to ensure that people waiting for treatment feel connected to our services.
Previously, there was no standardised approach for reaching out to those waiting. Now, as the number of people seeking support for their mental health in the community increases, the team aims to provide purposeful care while preventing crisis.
How does it work?
Service users waiting for treatment will receive a call to confirm they are still on the list, check if their care needs are still appropriate, and offer reassurance. This proactive contact can also help reduce the number of service users from presenting in emergency departments.
While the call doesn’t provide direct interventions, it ensures service users feel connected, and they will also receive a text with a link to information on newly developed pages on the Trust website which provides information about their team and self-help resources.
The call might also include psychoeducational support, support with implementing self-help guidance received in previous calls, community signposting, as well as an opportunity to identify needs that have emerged since their last contact that the team can support to address. The team can check in with service users, and where immediate concerns are raised, direct them to the most appropriate support.
Staying Connected While You Wait aims to ensure that those on the list are waiting for the right care. Service users’ needs may change during this time meaning support is needed more quickly, or different support is needed. Service users may tell us they no longer require care, having sought treatment elsewhere or found interim support offered helpful, which can open space for others on our waiting lists.
Yvonne Hemmings, Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies in our Community Service Line said:
“Waiting for treatment can be daunting. It’s essential that service users feel reassured and connected during this time, knowing they haven’t been forgotten and that they are receiving person-centred care from the very start.
“We hope that this helps service users to feel they are in touch with us, that they are receiving relevant support whilst waiting for more intensive psychological treatments, and that they know we are doing our best to see them as quickly as possible.”
S, a Lived Experience member at our Trust who has previously experienced a period of waiting for treatment from our community services, said:
“People tend to ask for help when they are most in need, and when there is a wait to get this help, it can be very hard. The changes this project brings will help people during that period of waiting – having a text to update you, and a call to check in and signpost you if needed – could make all the difference to how you feel during this time.”
Currently, the trial is running in Sutton and Merton Integrated Recovery Hubs, with plans to extend it to those waiting for complex services in Wandsworth soon.
