Mental Health and Emergency Department Interface Improvement Programme
Supporting teams working at the interface between acute emergency departments and mental health to develop solutions to local issues.
Improving emergency care for people in mental health crisis: actions for change
Practical actions to improve outcomes and experience for people accessing emergency care during a mental health crisis.
Mental health
Improvement
Our improvement collaborative programme, delivered in partnership with NHS England's Get It Right First Time (GIRFT) Mental Health Team, seeks to strengthen and encourage cross-system working by supporting practical, real-time testing of improvement ideas across these boundaries.
The programme ran from May 2025 to April 2026 and was split into the following six three-hour learning sessions exclusively for the interface teams and three webinars which were open to anyone to attend:
- Session one: Understanding the problem
- Session two: Measurement & scoping out potential solutions
- Session three: Human factors & behavioural change
- Session four: Testing out improvement ideas
- Session five: On-going testing & sustainability
- Session six: Celebration: Recognition, spread & sharing
- Webinar one: Understanding health inequalities
- Webinar two: Leading through change
- Webinar three: Understanding and delivering trauma informed care
Throughout the programme, all teams received extensive support, including a dedicated facilitator per team, to design and implement solutions to overcome challenges to interface working in their areas
In total, 12 mental health trusts were involved across 18 separate locations for acute care and mental health services. View our interactive map to find out more about the sites
Participating teams
|
Region |
Location |
Organisations involved |
|---|---|---|
| East of England | Bedfordshire | Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and East London NHS Foundation Trust |
| East of England | Essex | East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust and Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust |
| London | Guys and St Thomas | Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust |
| West Midlands | Coventry and Warwickshire | Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust and University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust |
| North West | Cheshire and Wirral | Arrow Park Hospital NHS Trust and Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust |
| South East | Berkshire | Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust |
| South East | Kent & Medway | Maidstone & Tonbridge Wells NHS Trust and North East London Foundation Trust |
| South East | Surrey Heartlands | Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Ashford and St Peters Hospitals Foundation Trust, and Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust |
| South West | Avon & Wiltshire | Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust |
| South West | Dorset | University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and Dorset HealthCare NHS Foundation Trust |
| West Midlands | Birmingham | Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | Yorkshire | Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust and South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust |
Improvement project focus areas
View the attached slides created by each of our teams to learn more about their work:
Why we developed the programme
We are committed to supporting members to implement improvement solutions to known national challenges. One of these challenges is what happens at the interface between the emergency department and secondary mental health services, and how a person with mental health needs presenting at an emergency department is cared for and managed.
Resolving this is critical to improving care and patient experience and outcomes for people with mental health needs. It is also important for dealing with operational challenges, improving processes and relationships between staff.
Our improvement collaborative programme, delivered in partnership with NHS England's Get It Right First Time (GIRFT) Mental Health Team, seeks to strengthen and encourage cross system working by supporting practical, real-time testing of improvement ideas across these boundaries.
Meet the team
Programme ambassadors
- Mark Buchanan – Emergency Medicine Consultant, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Mark Buchanan is an adult and paediatric emergency medicine consultant working in Arrowe Park Hospital, part of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
He has developed an interest in improving care given to adults and children attending the emergency department in a mental health crisis and is the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Mental Health Sub-Committee chair, having worked on projects with NHS England, Health Education England and the Department of Health and Social Care.
- Dr Mary Docherty – Consultant in Liaison Psychiatry, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Mary is a general adult and liaison psychiatrist and National Clinical Director for Adult Mental Health with NHS England.
- Ian Callaghan – Lived Experience Programme Manager, Rethink Mental Illness
Ian has had lived experience of severe mental illness most of his adult life, which has brought him into contact with emergency care on many occasions. At times this has led to hospitalisation and on one occasion detention under the Mental Health Act.
Ian has worked for Rethink Mental Illness for the past 10 years and is now a Lived Experience Programme Manager, working on a variety of long- and short-term involvement and co-production projects, as well as policy work around patient safety and the quality of inpatient care.
He is a passionate advocate for elevating the voice of lived experience and is delighted to be an ambassador for our collaborative programme.
NHS Alliance team
- Emma Paveley – Senior Policy Manager
- Alex Stewart – Assistant Director, Mental Health Network
- Emma Fulton – Senior Policy and Delivery Manager, Acute Network
- Chris Truscott – Member Engagement Manager
- Miros Saridakis – Senior Project Coordinator (Evolve Collaborative)
NHS England's Mental Health Improvement Support Team
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