Abstract

Psychosocial Interventions (PSI) have been recognised as an important and valuable treatment to individuals with a serious mental health problem and their families. Over the past decade, PSI has gained momentum nationally through training courses such as the Thorn programme. Despite NHS provider organisations investing time and money in the training of mental health practitioners in Thorn based Psychosocial interventions, implementation of such interventions into practice post training have been inconsistent and fraught with difficulties. Literature to date, has focussed mainly on the evaluation of the efficacy of Thorn trained practitioners in practice and evaluated attempts at transferring skills into practice. The aim of this study is to identify through the use of a qualitative methodology, if a tripartite meeting assists Thorn graduates to implement psychosocial interventions into clinical practice? Fifteen participants from a local NHS Trust (including eight Thorn graduates) who are involved in the tripartite meeting process were interviewed. Six core themes were identified using grounded theory methodology following the transcription and coding of interviews. The six themes are: framework for implementation; organisational drivers; thorn graduates position; service achievements; reforms to the process and threats to implementation. The themes identified indicate that the tripartite meeting is a valuable framework that assists thorn graduates to implement a range of psychosocial interventions into clinical practice and helps makes an impact upon the culture of an organisation through facilitating change towards evidence based psychosocial practice.