York EIP achieves CQC good rating

Community Links’ York & Selby Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service has been awarded a ‘good’ rating for the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC, which is the independent regulator of health and social care services in England, found York EIP to be ‘good’ in all 5 Inspection Areas; Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led.

York EIP provides community mental health support to people aged 14 to 65 experiencing their first episode of psychosis, or those thought to be at risk of developing psychosis. The service works intensively with service users for up to three years before they are discharged into other care services.

Since Community Links began delivering the service in 2012, we have eliminated waiting lists and delivered a consistent, high quality reliable service throughout the York and Selby area.
There have also been lots of great awareness building events and links made with the York community over the past few years including attending University mental health open days and York Pride. Service users have been involved with a variety of diverse visits to local organisations such as museums, a buddhist centre and St Nicks Environment Centre.

We have also taken learnings from our Leeds EIP service (aspire) and used these to enhance our York EIP service. An example of this is the introduction of Dramatherapy which is a wordless therapy particularly useful for those who find talking difficult. Additional Big Lottery funding was secured in 2016 to extend Dramatherapy to our York EIP clients. The success of the Dramatherapy will continue when the service moves over to TEWV (Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust) in April 2017.

Community Links would like to wish all the very best to the staff and service users of York EIP as they continue to deliver under TEWV.

To view the latest CQC report for York EIP visit – http://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-369294939