Taking the Cinderella speciality to the PROM: developing a patientrelated outcome measure for an older adult mental health service

Abstract

In the UK there has been a shift over the last decade towards the setting of targets by commissioning or regulatory bodies so that health services provide improved levels of care. For mental health services this has occurred in three phases: phase one related to simple key performance indicators (for example collection of patients' diagnostic codes); phase two placed greater emphasis on more meaningful clinical outcome data; the third and most recent phase placed prominence on patient‐focused data collection. We report the development and preliminary findings of a piloting of a patient‐related outcome measure (PROM) and patient‐related experience measure (PREM) created specifically for older adult mental health services in Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. PROMs/PREMs are in keeping with an increased focus on patients' experience of health care, the provision of quality services and various key policies such as the recent government white paper Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS.

Citation

Whelan, P., Andrews, T., Patel, S. and Lewis, A. (2010), "Taking the Cinderella speciality to the PROM: developing a patientrelated outcome measure for an older adult mental health service", Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 51-55. https://doi.org/10.5042/qiaoa.2010.0718