Service Development & Delivery | Discussion Forum

Are you someone who manages Forensic mental health services or contracts to have them provided? You could be a manager (clinical or general), an administrator or a Director.

Equally you could be a purchaser, commissioner or government or court official responsible for Forensic Mental Health services, if so the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services has established an Administrators section within the IAFMHS to cater for our needs.

Across the world models of treatment services for mentally ill or personality disordered offenders differ greatly.  This section would give an opportunity for those people responsible for running or buying these services to exchange ideas.

To date the IAFMHS and many other organisations cater for comparison, study and research of scientific and clinical matters but there appears to be no opportunity for similar study or research into the management of these organisations.

This section is a forum for the exchange of experiences and ideas where the participants do not have to represent any formal system but can be open for discussion. In recent years section members have shared ideas and collaborated on subjects such as quality standards, risk management, treatment programs and outcomes, service specifications and much, much more! We believe that the opportunity to study, compare and benchmark services will enable us to run our services more effectively leading to a better quality of care and more efficiently enabling us to provide a better quality service within finite budgets.

Target group

As above those responsible for managing or commissioning forensic mental health services or those responsible for the administrative or legal structure in which such services run. This could be people from the legal or government system, the people responsible for buying or commissioning these services be they in the public or private sectors and those responsible for managing or directing the services be they clinicians or general managers or administrators.

We have a strong international membership and welcome new members to the section.

Goals

• Learning from each others service models
• Developing a stronger evidence-base for the provision of forensic service models
• Benchmarking services

How to achieve these goals

• Meet annually during the IAFMHS conference with future appropriate symposia or academic sessions.
• Regular contact through the year to consider topics of interest.

If you are interested in joining our group please sign up for the section meeting at our Annual Conference.

Contact: Dr. Lindsay Thomson (lindsay.thomson1@nhs.scot)