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Intensive home based treatment team
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About the service
The Kirklees intensive home based treatment team provides rapid and intensive interventions for people with acute mental health problems in the least restrictive environment as close to their home as clinically possible.
Intensive home based treatment can be provided in a range of settings and offers an alternative to inpatient care. We have the flexibility to respond to differing service user needs over an extended working day, 7 days a week.
If hospitalisation is necessary, the Kirklees intensive home based treatment team is actively involved in the discharge planning process and, if required, provides intensive care at home to enable timely discharge from hospital.
Why would someone choose the service?
- The team will help you to understand your experience and work with you to identify ways so that you can better manage your mental health symptoms.
- The team support people in their own homes as an alternative to hospital admission and this helps to minimise disruption to you and your family.
- The team are available to support you outside of normal working hours, being more flexible to meet your needs and responsive to supporting your mental health recovery.
Staff you may meet
- Administrative staff provide essential support to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. This can be in a variety of different settings, with administrators working as a receptionist in a clinic or a clerk on a ward. They may also be working closely with a consultant as a medical secretary.
- There are more than 60 different specialities that doctors work within the NHS. Each is unique but there are many characteristics which are common. Roles range from working in a hospital to being based in the community as a GP.
- There are many people who work behind the scenes to keep services running and you may meet them in hospital or community settings. They include porters, cleaners, plumbers, electricians, decorators receptionists and secretaries who all work to make sure healthcare settings are kept clean, tidy and safe.
- Nurses who choose to specialise in the mental health branch of nursing work with GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, and others, to help care for patients. Increasingly, care is given in the community, with mental health nurses visiting patients and their families at home, in residential centres, in prisons or in specialist clinics or units.
- The NHS employs a wide range of clinical staff, it wouldn’t be possible to list them all on this website! All our clinical staff are skilled, dedicated professionals who adhere to high standards of training and work-place practice.
- Social workers help, support and protect people who are facing difficulties in their lives. They help people to take positive steps to overcome problems and improve their lives. This could involve assessing and reviewing a service user’s situation, building relationships with service users and their families and agreeing what practical support someone needs.
Why a professional should choose the service
- The intensive home based treatment team is committed to the provision of good quality care. Effective clinical audit and practice evaluation are critical to the development of high quality and safe service user-centred services.
- Regular audits are undertaken to ensure compliance in respect of DNA protocol, Perinatal Pathway (perinatal and maternal mental health) and additional contact information to inform robust risk management processes.
- The service offers a rapid assessment and intensive home based treatment as an alternative to hospital admission, thus allowing service users and carers to be supported in the least restrictive environment with the minimum disruption to their lives. This includes a range of crisis-focused interventions from staff with qualifications/experience in the areas of psychology, social work, medicine and nursing.
- The service gate-keeps all adult acute inpatient admissions. All service users requiring an adult acute inpatient bed will be subject to a gate-keeping process via the team.
- Crisis service gate-keeping ensures:
- All service users are treated in the least restrictive environment which is consistent with their clinical and safety needs.
- Acute inpatient admissions and pressure on beds are reduced.
- Equality of access to an alternative to admission for all service users, carers and relatives.
- The service provides 7-day follow up to all service users who are discharged from inpatient units and either do not have a named care coordinator or do not require ongoing secondary mental health support. This informs best practice and contributes to the CQUIN target of 95% compliance by the Trust.
Support offered
- Psychosocial education (therapeutic techniques which take into account the social aspects of the person’s life)
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy skills (CBT – therapy to help you change the way you think and act)
- Brief focused solution work (a type of therapy)
- Ongoing assessment of risk and safety plans created by staff and service user working together
- Introduction and/or ongoing monitoring of prescribed medication. Where appropriate, and for safety reasons, the team may deliver and administer medication.
- Intensive support to manage mental health symptoms.
- Onward referral to other services which may be able to help further.
Outcomes
The service works in partnership with service users, their carers, relatives and allied health professionals to support service users through a short-term mental health crisis. The team’s flexible and intensive approach aims to promote recovery, inclusion and resilience.
Referrals accepted from:
CMHTs, Consultants, Other Trust services, Single Point of Access team
Referral criteria:
New clients will be referred to the Kirklees single point of access team and assessed before onward referral to the intensive home based treatment team.
The intensive home based treatment team will also accept referrals from other services and teams. Service users receiving care from community services will be referred to the intensive home based treatment team by the appropriate care coordinator.
Referral criteria:
- Imminent risk of harm to self or others by a service user experiencing mental health problems.
- A person likely to need psychiatric inpatient admission due to a mental health crisis
- Acute (severe) onset of a suspected psychiatric illness.
- Risk of service user’s self-neglect or exploitation of a service user with mental health problems.
- Loss of carer whose role is central to the delivery of care.
- A service user on an inpatient ward whose discharge may be made more timely with the team’s input.
- Service users accepted for home based treatment will have risk assessment scores which indicate high levels of risk/need.
Whilst the above statements provide a broad outline of service users appropriate to receive intensive home based treatment team services, the referral criteria does not exclude any particular individual or diagnosis. The service will maintain the flexibility to provide care to all those deemed appropriate following a comprehensive assessment.