New Roles in Mental Health - Findings so far

With Phase 1 and 2 of the New Roles in Mental Health project complete, Pauline explains what we can tell you so far in this 20min conference style presentation. To implement a new role in a mental health service, it is vital to understand how roles lead to changes in 'skill mix' in a service. Skill-mix describes the mix of different staff in a team, the range of competencies possessed by each staff member, and the ratio of senior to junior staff in the team. Understanding skill mix will help leaders and staff to understand and communicate the kind of change each new role is meant to deliver, review how roles evolve to ensure they still fulfil their purpose; and identify opportunities to learn across roles. The New Roles in Mental Health Research Project led by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust is critical in helping NHS services to respond to the ongoing workforce crisis in mental health. Background: The National Health Service (NHS) is currently facing a workforce crisis, and mental health services have been hit the hardest, with a higher turnover of staff and more vacant positions than the rest of the NHS. To bolster the mental health workforce, a range of new roles, such as Nursing Associates, Physician Associates, and Peer Support Workers, have been created. However, introducing new roles in mental health teams often leads to disruption in how care is organised and delivered. With £800,000 of funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), researchers from Sheffield University Management School (SUMS) and the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) will study how best to introduce new roles in mental health to strengthen and support the healthcare system as a whole, for the benefit of service users and those delivering care. The project, “New Roles, New Challenges: Understanding boundary work to support the implementation of new roles in mental health Trusts”, will take a novel approach to this challenge. The project will develop a model to understand the different types of new roles, why they are being introduced and how they impact on how care is delivered. This model will then be validated by NHS staff and service users, and will inform eight in-depth case studies across four NHS Trusts to understand how new roles can most effectively be introduced. For more info on the project please see the website. https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac... ------------------ 0:00 Intro 1:42 Phase 1 description 2:38 Phase 2 description 4:02 Types of skill-mix change 5:54 Examples of skill-mix change 11:20 Internal enablers of new role implementation 14:03 External enablers of new role implementation 17:17 Phase 3 of the project 20:14 Summary 20:44 Wrap-up and credits ------------------ The illustrations used in this presentation were designed by Nifty Fox Creative. https://www.niftyfoxcreative.com/ The research project ‘New Roles, New Challenges: Understanding boundary work to support the implementation of new roles in mental health Trusts’ is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed on this video are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government.