Early Intervention in Psychosis Summary Report 

Accelerator site learning

NHS Forth Valley and Argyll & Bute HSCP undertook detailed exploration of their existing services for people with first episode psychosis.

First steps for developing EIP in local areas were identified:

Engagement

Identifying senior leadership and support is an important first step.

Mechanisms should also be established for engagement with key stakeholders, including people with lived experience, third sector, and staff.

Engagement sessions and service user and carer questionnaires help build the foundation for agreeing a local vision and measuring performance against standards.

Resources

It is important to identify capacity, including existing staff who have training in evidence-based interventions and who have experience working with people with psychosis, for example, psychosocial interventions for psychosis (PSIp), behavioural family therapy (BFT), and cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp).

In addition, it is important to ensure staff have adequate access to clinical supervision.

Service design

It is crucial to identify people who are in the early stages of psychosis and understand how people currently access and experience care and treatment. Tools such as stakeholder mapping, force field analysis, and process mapping support this.

There is also a need to collect key data including duration of untreated psychosis, referrals, engagement with services and whether the evidence-based interventions are being delivered, to identify opportunities for improvement.

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