Kirklees older people’s services accredited with excellence
Older people’s mental health services provided by South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Kirklees are on their way to becoming a recognised a centre of excellence after achieving stage 1 accreditation as a practice development unit.
Practice development unit accreditation is awarded by the Centre for the Development of Healthcare Policy and Practice (CDHPP) and the process is designed to support healthcare providers to push boundaries and develop innovative ideas in order to deliver the best possible care for local people.
Accreditation is external recognition that a unit is providing patient focused care and actively improving patients’ experiences of services. At the heart of this is making sure that individuals understand their rights; ensuring everyone is treated with dignity and respect; providing individualised care based on needs and choices and making sure people who use services feel involved and empowered.
A summary report given by the CDHPP commended the Trust’s older people’s services for working with innovation, putting people who use the service at the centre of everything they do, and giving service users genuine involvement in and influence over how services are run.
Stage 1 accreditation provides initial recognition that the service is performing to exceptionally high standards, but the Trust’s older people’s services are now looking to consolidate and build on their good practice in order to achieve full, stage 2 accreditation in 2010.
Senior manager for practice development in older people’s services, Suzanne Wightman said, "The work we’ve done so far has been a great success and achieving stage 1 accreditation is really rewarding for all the staff involved who’ve worked so hard."
Sue Barton, assistant director of older people’s services added, "We are delighted to have been awarded initial accreditation. Becoming a practice development unit is an exciting journey of discovery and development, and one that transforms and energises clinical teams. It raises standards and ensures we are delivering only the very best for local people using our services and their carers."