News

24/07/15 - 6 month fidelity reviews now complete

Thank you to all the intervention teams for helping us carry out the 6 month fidelity reviews, which have now all been completed.

We are in the process of sending out the finalised reports, and letters to managers and senior Trust staff outlining progress to date and suggestions for work in the final few months of the study.

We are keen to visit each team so managers and staff can ask any questions they have about the fidelity review reports, or the study in general.  If you would like to arrange a visit please contact Danni Lamb (020 7679 9048 d.lamb@ucl.ac.uk) or Kate Fullarton (020 7679 9051 k.fullarton@ucl.ac.uk).

15/05/15 - Learning collaborative slides available

The slides from the presentations at the Learning Collaborative event are now available below:

• The national context and crisis care concordat - Dr Geraldine Strathdee (.pdf)
• Crisis resolution and home treatment in England: where are we now? - Professor Sonia Johnson (.pdf)
• Supporting CRT service improvement: An overview of the CORE study - Dr Bryn Lloyd-Evans (.pdf)Avon and Wiltshire - Chris Ellis and Ros Walsh (.pdf)
• Camden & Islington and Northamptonshire - Durand Darougar, Hayner Harries, and Kelly Gibbons (.pdf)
• North East London - Oliver Mason and Pam Grimes (.pdf)
• Surrey and Borders - Maria Geoghegan, Ward Lawrence, and Lloyd Bisnouth (.pdf)
• Sussex - Bree MacDonald, Rob Barnes, Julia Kesteven, and Lisa Dyde (.pdf)
• West London - Puja Sahai (.pdf)

30/04/15 - Learning collaborative event report

Thank you to everyone who came to the Learning Collaborative event on Monday.  It was fantastic to hear about all the work that is going on in our study teams, and we hope you all found it as useful and inspiring as we did.  Great to hear from Dr Geraldine Strathdee and Inspector Michael Brown, our external speakers.  There was some excellent live Tweeting happening through the day, so check out #corelc2015 for nice concise summaries of talks.

26/03/15 - Learning collaborative event booked for 27th April

The "Learning Collaborative" is an event for teams involved in the CORE study, as well as participating NHS Trust Directors and Commissioners, Acute Service Managers, CRHT Leads and senior clinicians.  Each team will have an opportunity to present their service improvement project and to promote shared learning.

The event will be held on Monday 27th April 2015, at UCL (Gavin de Beer lecture theatre, room G04, in the Anatomy building, which is on the main UCL campus on Gower Street,WC1E 6XA).  The event will start at 10am and will finish at approximately 4pm.

Speakers include: Geraldine Strathdee, National Clinical Director for Mental Health, NHS England & Inspector Michael Brown, "Mental Health Cop".

To confirm your attendance and for further details, please contact Danni Lamb, CORE Deputy Programme Manager: d.lamb@ucl.ac.uk 020 76799725.

05/02/15 - Facilitators' conference call

Engaging Teams in Service Improvement Work

CORE Facilitators were invited to participate in a conference call on 21.01.15. Facilitators from teams in Avon& Wiltshire, Northants, Camden & Islington, Sussex and Surrey took part.

The main topic discussed was 'Engaging teams in Service Improvement Work'.

Facilitators each provided feedback on their work with teams over the last few months since they attended the facilitators training day in September 2014. 

Building Relationships with Teams

In some cases the facilitators already know the teams as they work or have worked with them clinically. The importance of building relationships with team leaders and teams was emphasised, for example, by:

• Regular meetings with teams/team leaders
• Providing information about the CORE study and addressing any concerns/questions 
• Spending time getting to know the team (going on visits, attending handovers and team meetings etc) 

Preparing for Scoping Days

Over the last few months a key task for facilitators has been working with team leaders and teams to prepare for team away days ('scoping days'). The format of team away days has been tailored to meet the needs of each team to include opportunities for teams to use CRT fidelity tool feedback to celebrate successes ('what are we doing well?') and to develop a shared vision of priority areas for improvement ('what would we like to do more of/better?').

Measuring Readiness for Change

One of the main themes that emerged from the facilitator's feedback was the importance of assessing each team's readiness for change. 

It is recognised that for many teams, carrying out service improvement work may be seen as an increased demand on staff who already feel under considerable burden. Facilitators felt that a major part of their role was to help support teams to identify strengths that they might build on, and to set realistic and achievable steps towards achieving their team's 'vision'. 

Time for Service Improvement Work

Facilitators all felt that the dedicated time allocated each week to support team's service improvement work is invaluable and appreciated the opportunity the CORE study provides for this away from their usual roles. 

23/12/14 - All teams now randomised

Welcome to the CORE study resource pack website to all the teams who have been randomised into the intervention arm and will be receiving the intervention over the next twelve months.

It's great to have you all taking part and the CORE team are looking forward to working with you.

We hope that this website will be of use for you to get ideas and resources as you go through the process of having your scoping days, setting up service improvement groups and writing your service improvement plans.  If you have any suggestions about how to improve the website, or have resources you would like to add, please let us know (d.lamb@ucl.ac.uk).

We will be updating this news page as we go through the year with information about developments in each team, so we hope that this will be an extra resource for you to use.  We also hope that you will contact each other to share your experiences and tips about what's worked or is working well, as well as how you might tackle any challenges that you are facing.

The teams taking part in the study are: