.gif "How Lambeth Council undertakes effective know your citizen (KYC) / ID checks to prevent fraud")
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
 Printable version
|
The perinatal mental health (PMH) matrix: Improving the quality of care for women with PMH issues
Blog posted by: Sarah Fishburn, quality improvement lead, Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network, 08 May 2019.
Shared Learning Award 2019 finalist
In the Thames Valley, we found that, the data showing if the NHS services were meeting the NICE quality standards for antenatal and postnatal mental health was missing.
In 2017 Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network designed an online tool, the PMH matrix, to collect performance data from NHS services working with women with or at risk of developing PMH problems. Performance standards are the NICE quality standards for antenatal and postnatal mental health. Prior to this, there was no system available to determine the quality of these NHS services.
Teams working across the south of England in maternity, health visiting, and secondary care mental health and psychology services are invited to enter their performance data in the PMH matrix.
The data is displayed in graphs on a live dashboard which shows how well services are performing against the NICE quality standards as well as how many referrals have been received and staffing levels for each service. Teams can benchmark their performance against other local and regional teams, and map trends over time.
“We’re finding the Matrix really easy to use and love the live dashboard. It’s made more of a difference than any other audit and it’s led to our next quality improvement project.”
Gloria Aldridge, Perinatal Clinical Nurse Manager for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (Milton Keynes).
The PMH matrix has triggered a number of quality improvement projects in our region:
- a mental health trust-wide review of valproate prescription for women of child-bearing age;
- plans for mental health and maternity services to improve shared clinical decision-making with women with mental health problems;
- an update of maternity clinical records to record the midwives’ and health visitors’ questions about women’s emotional well-being, to improve identification of PMH problems.
- improvements in IT systems to make sure that relevant data can be collected.
In the Thames Valley area there is great enthusiasm among frontline clinicians to improve the services for women with PMH problems. The PMH matrix, which has been endorsed by NICE, empowered clinicians to influence service developments in our area by providing immediate access to live performance data. The matrix can help identify areas of strength as well as areas for improvement. The dashboard is accessible to all involved and their performance can be compared at the level of individual services, local maternity systems and NHS regions.
Further details are available at: https://pmhmatrixsouth.nhs.uk
Acknowledgements
The PMH Matrix was developed by Thames Valley SCN by Michael Yousif, Consultant Psychiatrist, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Rebecca Furlong, Network Manager (Children & Maternity), Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network, and Bryony Gibson, Thames Valley Perinatal Mental Health Project Lead, Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network and Sarah Fishburn, Quality Improvement Lead for Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network. It is based on the EIP Matrix and funded by NHS England South Region.
Original article link: https://www.nice.org.uk/news/blog/the-perinatal-mental-health-pmh-matrix-improving-the-quality-of-care-for-women-with-pmh-issues
