Recommendation · source text
Practitioners whom we interviewed were (almost all) supportive of the structure and intentions of the Trust’s approach to risk assessment and safety planning, and (almost all) keen to see additional and regular training opportunities to improve practice. We think such a training programme appears to be required and justified by these findings. This should ideally be a multi-modal programme, given varying learning preferences: direct face-to-face training; video and online materials; discussion and practice reflection; worked case examples. These need to include materials focussed on patient groups for whom practice is less certain, in particular children and young people, neurodivergent people, and people with memory problems. Preparatory work for such a training programme should include establishing clearly the Trust’s expected realistic practice standards and policies relating to: risk formulation; safety plans, involvement of service users and family members; updating assessments. We would expect this to be an iterative process, with changes being tested in training and in practice, and then further updated. The practice in after action reviews needs to build on existing good practice which is already in place, but not applied sufficiently consistently.