Carer Representative

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is seeking a carer representative x1 to join the Quality Network for Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (QNPICU) as a Worker. The successful applicants will have recent lived experience caring for someone who has accessed psychiatric intensive care (PICU). Only applicants with lived experience will be considered for this role. The term “carer” refers to any family member, friend or loved one of the patient who has communicated with the PICU team to be involved in the planning of the patients’ (their loved one’s) care. The Carer Representative will be an integral member of the network working with the project team, to support the various activities of the project and advocate for the patient and carer group.

About the network

The Network is a quality improvement project that works with PICU services all around the UK. The views, ideas, skills and experience of people who have used these services are vital for our work. The main aim of the project is to drive up the quality of care in PICU services and to provide a platform to connect services throughout the UK and Ireland, to share good practice and enable teams to learn from each other. PICU services engage in a supportive process of selfand peer-review to assess how the service is performing against an agreed set of quality standards. Carer representatives are expected to contribute by attending and contributing to the peer reviews. Opportunities may also arise for involvement with the Advisory Group, Accreditation Committee, standards development, annual conference and other events.

You can read more about the Network on our webpages:

Description of the main stages of the Networks:

Quality standards for specific mental health services – The standards spell out what needs to happen in order to provide a good service and are used to measure service quality. For example, a standard on patient information might state ‘patients are offered a summary of their care plan’. This standard would then be measured and if a mental health team is not meeting the standard, they will be asked to put changes in place to meet it in the future.

Who decides what goes in the standards? The standards are developed by looking at existing guidance and by consulting with experts in the field, including staff, patients and carers. This will sometimes involve a large meeting where people discuss what should and should not be included.

Self-review - This involves us sending out questionnaires or other forms for staff, patients and carers to fill in and send back to us. We sometimes refer to these as ‘data collection tools’. These all link to the quality standards and help to inform us about whether a standard is being met.

Peer review – This involves mental health staff, patients and/or carers visiting another mental health service for a day to look around, interview people and take part in group discussions. People going on peer reviews, whether clinicians, patients or carers, all receive full training and support from the project team. These are day long visits which follow a clear structure and are facilitated by an experienced lead.

Writing reports – Project staff write reports which summarise the achievements of the service as well as areas they need to improve upon. The reports are sent back to the service so that they can learn from the findings.

Learning events – Some projects hold events so that people in particular areas of mental health can share ideas and help each other improve ways of working. Patients and carers are often involved in these events, with the potential for dedicated workshops being run by patients and carers about their experiences and how this can support service improvement.

Advisory Group - Each network has its own Advisory Group comprising of professionals who represent key interests and areas of expertise relevant to the network, and patients and carers who have experience of using the services the network focuses on. The purpose of the group is to advise and further the work of the network.

Accreditation Committee – The network also has an Accreditation Committee, which accredits services based on the evidence gathered during the self- and peer review. The committee may request further information or a re-visit to the service if there are concerns about quality.

The Patient Representative and Carer Representative must have access to their own electrical equipment to attend meetings and Wi-Fi connection. RCPsych has developed a high media profile and is a leading organisation in terms of equality and diversity. It was a recent winner of Charity of the Year at the European Diversity Awards. This is an excellent opportunity for patients and carers to contribute their perspectives on important mental health issues for QNPICU and be part of our ongoing strategy and communications development.

If you require assistance or any other reasonable adjustments to complete your application form, please contact HRrecruitment@rcpsych.ac.uk

The College is a proud member of the Disability confident employer scheme. A Disability confident employer will offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria (essential) for the job as defined by the employer. Please see candidate information pack for more information

Advertised on behalf of RCPsych.