Launching DIALOG+ in Older Adult Community Mental Health Teams | News

Our Trust member, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, are beginning to use DIALOG+ as their framework for care planning. This follows the effective implementation of DIALOG+ in Adult Community Mental Health Teams over the last two years.

DIALOG+ is a care planning framework that enables healthcare professionals to have supportive and meaningful conversations about the areas of a patient’s life that are most important to them like family and relationships, as well as mental and physical health.

Older Adults are first given a DIALOG questionnaire which asks about their experience of different areas of their life, and the services they receive, on a scale of one to seven – seven being ‘totally satisfied’ and one being ‘totally dissatisfied’. A co-produced care plan is then created based on these responses.

The 11 questions designed to record and measure a patient’s life satisfaction and satisfaction with services.

For a more detailed summary of DIALOG+ please follow this link.

Following a period of workshops and staff training sessions, DIALOG+ officially launched in all Older Adult CMHTs this Autumn, across all London boroughs. The aim is for 50% of Older Adult CMHT patients to have a DIALOG+ care plan by spring 2024.

Progress in Adult Community Mental Health services has been excellent. Over half of DIALOG+ care plans have now been completed in Brent, Harrow, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster. Brent is leading the way with 71% of DIALOG+ care plans completed.

Feedback from a service user in CNWL’s adult community mental health services exemplifies the benefit of DIALOG+: “It felt less intrusive than a Care Program Approach and the open questions made it feel more about me and my recovery, rather than just a tick box exercise."

Guy Harman (guy.harman@nhs.net) and Caitlin Bodfish (Caitlin.bodfish@nhs.net) are leading the implementation amongst Older Adult teams and can be contacted for any further queries.