Overuse of unnecessary or harmful care is a worldwide problem and it is estimated that 30% of care provided has little or no benefit to the patient. Although progress has been made in stopping some of these practices there has been little focus on identifying unwanted or harmful mental health care. As mental health services face huge demands and a lack of resources it has become increasingly important to remove, reduce, replace, or restrict practices that provide little or no benefit to the patient.
For this improvement science PhD within the Yorkshire and Humber ARC, interviews with people with lived experience of mental health services showed five main practices considered to be unnecessary or harmful. This included restrictive practices like restraint and seclusion, enhanced observations, risk assessments and overuse of antidepressants.
The next study will explore how enhanced observations are used in inpatient mental health services to manage the risk of suicide, self-harm and aggression in service users.
