Social Value and Evaluation

Psychiatry UK is a digital psychiatry service providing mental health care to children, teenagers, and adults across the UK. In Autumn 2023, the organisation received a "Requires Improvement" CQC rating and had been working to address the challenges highlighted in the report. In May 2024, Psychiatry UK commissioned Baxendale and our Partner Consultancies PPL and Edge Health to carry out an independent review of the service's quality and risk. They were keen to ensure that they addressed the CQC’s concerns and were well-positioned to deliver safe and effective care for their patients.

Following the independent review, Baxendale were engaged for a further eight months to implement improvements across the service. This included redesigning multiple key pathways, introducing the RADAR Quality Management System, supporting the organisation through the CQC Single Assessment Framework, and establishing a new audit schedule alongside its governance structures.

Conducting an in-depth review

Baxendale conducted an in-depth review of Psychiatry UK services, focusing on key issues identified by the CQC. This thorough analysis took place over five weeks and involved staff interviews, as well as a review of various documents, including organisational policies, action plans, and CQC responses. The key themes, strengths, and potential gaps were then presented to the Executive Team. We outlined a series of recommendations, including high-priority actions to address immediate concerns, alongside more strategic, long-term priorities.

Implementing these recommendations

Baxendale then supported Psychiatry UK in implementing these recommendations. This included facilitating workshops with key stakeholders to map out essential pathways, such as complaints, incidents, risks, and audits. Subsequently, Baxendale designed and project-managed the implementation of these pathways on the RADAR system, creating a single platform to log and manage all events, as well as track outcomes and learning points. This also included the automatic reporting of patient safety events to the NHS, promoting broader national learning.

Additionally, Baxendale assisted the organisation in completing the CQC Single Assessment Framework. This process involved all services conducting a baseline assessment to identify evidence of assurance against each quality statement and any gaps to be addressed. Following the baseline assessment, we supported the services in prioritising and implementing the necessary actions to improve quality.

Furthermore, we helped develop a new audit schedule and governance framework to ensure the organisation was focusing on the most critical areas while maintaining flexibility to prioritise emerging high-risk concerns. This governance structure enabled audits to be reviewed in a dedicated forum with Clinical Leads and Service Managers, ensuring findings and learning points were actively used to drive improvements.

What were the results?

“The Baxendale team seamlessly blended into our team, and it certainly didn’t feel like we were working with consultants. They are incredibly responsive at times of critical need - they made us feel like we were their top priority client and were always available. This is so important when high pressured situations arise for example CQC inspection, enquiries and due diligence. They have pre-empted the assistance we might need, nothing was too much trouble, and it’s been like having new people join the team permanently. My colleagues and I feel they are very human and approachable. They were brilliant at getting the balance absolutely right in meetings - keeping their advice concise and to the point. I will be ever grateful to them for easing the pressure during what has been an utterly crazy and surreal year for Psychiatry UK. Thank you so much! ”

- Smaira Rana, Director of Projects and CQC Registered Manager, Psychiatry UK