England’s 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) play an essential role in identifying and spreading safer care initiatives from within the NHS and industry, ensuring these are shared and implemented throughout the health and care system.

PSCs are funded and nationally coordinated by NHS England and NHS Improvement, and hosted locally by the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). Health Innovation Manchester hosts the Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire Patient Safety Collaborative.

PSCs can work directly with local teams, supporting them to make sure they have the right skills and resources to implement improvements. PSCs can also share good practice across the health system, focus on people-centred care and build relationships with NHS staff, business and academia to stimulate innovation and improvement.

Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme (MHSIP) in collaboration with the Advancing Quality Alliance hosted a learning event to share learning on reducing restrictive practice across Greater Manchester on 10^th May 2022. Restrictive practice refers to any act which involves restricting a person such as physical restraint, the use of rapid tranquilisation, or the use of a seclusion room.

This event is one of a series of three network events planned for the Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme which aims to reduce levels of restrictive practice in mental health wards. This should result in improvements to both patient and staff experience.

We welcomed 19 delegates including frontline ward teams and managers from Pennine Care and Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust.

Delegates had the opportunity to share their ideas on how they could reduce restrictive practice. There were interactive sessions to support delegates to develop their quality improvement skills, both for this project and for future initiatives.

Speakers on the day included Tom Ayers from the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health and Paul Greenwood, Programme Manager for Mental Health at the Advancing Quality Alliance. The event was hosted by Simon Hammond, Senior Programme Development Lead at Health Innovation Manchester.

Louise Bond, Programme Development Lead at Health Innovation Manchester said:

“It was fantastic to see the energy and enthusiasm for reducing restrictive practice. The last few months have been tough for teams working in mental health wards and it feels like it’s the right time to shift from emergency response to quality improvement. I’m looking forward to supporting teams to try out ideas that make a difference to patients and staff.”

The Mental Health Safety Improvement programme is part of a national commission from NHS England and Improvement.