Peer Review Visit - Mental Health and Patient Profiling
Having joined the RfH programme in 2007, this was Liverpool PCT’s first review. It focussed on the needs of BME service users with Severe Mental Illness (SMI). In particular, we looked at three specific conditions: schizophrenia, bipolar and psychosis, as well as the process the PCT has gone through to assess the needs of these patients and how this has been used to inform the decisions of mental health commissioners.
KEY QUESTIONS
The key questions for the review were as follows:
- To what extent can Patient Profiling in its current form support health needs assessment to inform commissioning decisions, and can the barriers it encounters be overcome?
- How can other models/methods of establishing ethnicity (and other indicators of diversity) complement Patient Profiling and inform commissioning?
- How can GP practice based disease registers be used to establish health needs across a range of conditions, and support monitoring of the RfH Performance Indicators?
- How can the role of the Community Development Workers complement health needs assessment and improve the access of BRM communities to mainstream mental health services?
- How has this work helped the PCT to meet the needs of BRM service users with depression and severe mental illness more effectively, and what further improvements could the PCT make?