Adult Mental Health Benchmarking
Overview
The principle objective of the Mental Health Benchmarking project is to improve Mental Health Services by using benchmarking to understand and compare services and their outcomes and to promote best practice through:
- assessment of the availability and use of Mental Health information
- developing a common set of Mental Health Service Definitions
- developing a balanced scorecard approach to performance
- evaluation of current mental health information system implementations
- evaluation of the role of information in joint mental health planning
Our approach is to use a range of comparative information to compare key aspects of performance by developing a suite of appropriate indicators, linked to the Quality Strategy themes of Efficient, Effective, Person-centred, Safe, Equitable and Timely. The aims of this are to inform key areas such as:
- patient experience and health outcomes
- how resources are used and managed
- whether services functions are appropriate, sufficiently sized and appropriately positioned to meet the needs of local communities in the medium and longer term
- achieving best value from current investment when resources are limited
Adult Mental Health Benchmarking Toolkit
The Adult Mental Health Benchmarking Toolkit helps to facilitate improvement of the Mental Health services in Scotland by using a range of comparative information to compare key aspects of performance, identify gaps, identify opportunities for improvement and monitor progress.
The information is primarily adult focussed based on the General Psychiatry and Psychiatry of Old Age specialties, and excludes Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Learning Disabilities and Forensic Psychiatry services. However, for certain indicators data are not available at an adult only level and may pertain to the wider Mental Health service.
The latest release of the toolkit contains information up to the end of March 2018. It comprises all available data for the relevant indicators split across the Quality Strategy domains; and is intended for both clinical and management use.
Click here to view Mental Health Benchmarking Toolkit 2017/2018
Background information on the definitions, sources and revisions of the indicators can be found in the following document:
Definitions and Sources
[330KB]
Consultation on decommissioning the Adult Mental Health Benchmarking Toolkit
In accordance with the letter from Clare Haughey, Minister for Mental Health to NHS Board Chief Executives, it is proposed that the Adult Mental Health Benchmarking Toolkit is retired in order for ISD to develop data collection and publication of the Mental Health Quality Indicators. This would free up resources from NHS Boards and ISD to focus on the new indicators.
ISD have also monitored access and use of the Adult MHBT and found that, in its current format, it is not as well utilised as it could be.
Prior to decommissioning the toolkit in its current form, we would welcome your thoughts and views to ensure that we are not missing any users. We would be grateful if you would let us know the following;
- How often do you use the Adult Mental Health Benchmarking toolkit in its current form?
- Should ISD retire the toolkit?
- Should ISD review the format?
- Is there other data of this nature that would be more beneficial than what is currently available?
We would be grateful if you could let us know your thoughts by 16th February 2019 and send them to NSS.isdMentalHealth@nhs.net or discuss with the team on 0131 314 1530.
Although this consultation has now ended we would still be grateful for any feedback on the proposed changes please send them to NSS.isdMentalHealth@nhs.net or discuss with the team on 0131 314 1530.

