A decade of service development: audit of service users’ experience of a rural Psychiatry of Later Life (POLL) service

Introduction The HSE “Vision for change”, national service plan and other policies emphasise the importance of incorporating the views of service users and carers in the design and delivery of mental health services. Aims To obtain the views of service users in relation to a rural POLL service. Compare our service to best practice and address issues identified. Repeat the audit cycle based on recommendations. Methodology New referrals to the POLL service were identified, and a pseudo-anonymised audit tool questionnaire was posted to these patients after initially making a telephone contact and obtaining informed consent. Results were compared to standards set by our team based on local and national policies. We used Microsoft Excel and performed a thematic analysis of qualitative data in the fourth cycle. This audit has been repeated on four occasions: 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2019. Results More than 90% of patients marked as being benefited by the POLL team. Overall, most positive responses pertained to supportive and professional staff, resolution of disease symptoms, psycho-education and attentive follow-up whereas negative responses were in relation to limited access to disabled parking spaces, perceived inadequate discharge planning and non-resolution of disease symptoms in few patients. Conclusion Involving POLL patients in audit provided useful insights to improve the quality of service. We resolved the issue of disabled parking access and have developed a service information leaflet and a discharge leaflet. We intend to focus more on psychoeducation and discharge planning based on the results of the current cycle.