Half term report: Sustainable commissioning, sustainable appraisals and the RCPsych scholarship

The first half of the year has been a busy one so far in my role as a psychiatry sustainability scholar…

As-well as collaborating and learning with the other enthusiastic scholars, attending and presenting at conferences and engaging with NHS colleagues in the ideas of sustainable healthcare, I have been undertaking 2 main projects:

I have been working with Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group to try to apply the principles of sustainable commissioning to the reviewing and commissioning of older adult mental health services. This involves working with the CCG team to review whether current services are sustainable, and to feed sustainability principles into the redesign to ensure all aspects are considered. Examples have included highlighting guidance on early identification of patients, generating guidance on specific risk factors and prevention strategies for functional illness in older age, helping to map which services or innovations/pilots might be best placed to tackle the risks, and others in the works.

I have also been undertaking a sustainability appraisal (possibly the first of its kind!) of a young person with dementia service. This service is an innovative charity which uses sustainable methods such as group activities in natural settings, to provide respite to carers/relatives of the sufferers. The project has involved evaluating the service from an environmental, financial, and social perspective (the triple bottom line). I hope to use this as a template for other services to be able to follow…

I hope to be able to provide further updates as my work progresses, and I’m looking forward to more collaborative work with the other scholars.