In the UK, in response to the Mental Health Taskforce, there was a drive to make sure people experiencing first-episode psychosis have timely access to evidence-based care. The NCCMH (National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health) developed the guidance documents to support this, commissioned by NHS England. These include then following:
- Implementing the EIP access and waiting time standard: guidance (PDF) describes in detail how commissioners and providers can implement the pathway for EIP services.
- Implementing the early intervention access and waiting time standard: resources (PDF) accompanies the Guidance, providing commissioners and providers with helpful resources to support the implementation.
- EIP recording and reporting on NICE-recommended interventions (PDF) (updated November 2022) provides guidance for services delivering care to people experiencing a first episode of psychosis. It describes how to record and report on interventions and outcomes using SNOMED codes, and how to submit the data to NHS Digital as part of the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS).
The use of SNOMED CT in clinical pathways is an important step forwards to support delivery of safe, high quality care, and SNOMED CT coding will enable additional analytical functionality to be available to support clinicians in the future.
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