Mental Health Inpatient Wards Achieve Accreditation First

All nine wards are now certified through the East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) Service User-Led Accreditation programme after Crystal Ward achieved a silver award. The programme is the first of its kind and was launched in 2019 to focus on quality and raising standards.

It has been designed and is led by service users who work alongside Quality Assurance and People Participation to recognise excellence, support improvement in patient experience and develop key standards for quality of care that matter most to the Trust’s service users.

Angela, Chair of the Accreditation Panel and a member of the service user accreditation team who visited Crystal Ward as part of the assessment process, returned on Thursday, March 14, to present the proud team with their award.

“The care you provide and dedication to supporting service users really stood out,” she said.

Angela was joined at the presentation by Dr Amar Shah, ELFT’s Chief Quality Officer.

“This initiative is truly service user led,” he said.

“It helps us focus on quality by enabling services to work with our experts by experience to understand whether we are meeting standards that our service users would expect. We know how important it is for our staff and service users to work together in raising the quality of care and experience, and this programme is a really meaningful way to bring this to life.”

He added: “Well done all members of the Bedfordshire and Luton mental health service for becoming the first inpatient service to achieve a full suite of accreditation.”

All nine units are now accredited through the programme.

They are:

Fountains Court, Bedford – Gold
Jade Ward PICU, Luton – Gold
Townsend Court, Houghton Regis – Bronze
Poplars Ward, Houghton Regis – Gold
Coral Ward, Luton – Gold
Cedar House, Bedford – Gold
Ash Ward, Luton – Silver
Willow Ward, Luton – Silver
Crystal Ward, Luton – Silver

ELFT provides mental health, community health and primary care services in Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Luton.

The accreditation programme is voluntary and interested teams and services apply to participate. Services can achieve gold, silver or bronze accreditation, with a recently introduced platinum award that is available for those teams who have already achieved a gold standard.

The teams that take part in the programme are given an opportunity to self-assess against 24 standards that are most important to our service users. These standards are focused on what matters most to people who use ELFT services, setting out what they expect in terms of service user involvement and experience.

By taking part in this innovative programme, teams have a better overall understanding of their assurance position and can focus on making key local improvements to improve care for the population we serve.

The programme has three essential components:

1. Self-assessment,

2. Assessor team visit to the service and report

3. Accreditation panel.

These steps help the Trust to ensure transparency, capture and share good practice.

The Trust’s ambition is that all clinical services will apply to take part in the accreditation programme, and once accredited the award last 3 years. If your ELFT team hasn't yet participated you can register to do so here.

Accreditation standards have now also been developed for corporate services, and the first three corporate teams are currently going through the accreditation process.