An evaluation of the implementation of the FACE Health and Social Assessment in routine psychiatric practice

Systematic assessment of patients is seen as an important aspect of mental health care. As yet few UK services have successfully implemented outcome measures.

To examine the feasibility of using FACE Health and Social Assessment in everyday practice and explore issues raised for staff.

This comprised a feasibility questionnaire completed by 52 staff, 3 focus groups involving 18 staff and an analysis of patient scores on routinely collected FACE data.

The questionnaire findings were positive yet only just over half of the patients on Assertive Outreach (AO) teams had some part of FACE completed in the previous year. The focus groups drew attention to many other calls on staff time and the importance of ongoing support. Staff were uncertain about the benefits of FACE for measuring change but believed that it promoted reflective practice. FACE subscores showed some ability to discriminate between patients on Rehabilitation and Recovery and AO teams but there were no significant differences for AO patients over time.

Although competing demands and low priority may underpin the failure to implement FACE it is perhaps clinical staffs lack of conviction in its contribution to improving mental health care that is the fundamental issue.