Setting a good example: extending a maternal mental health model to eating disorders
August 2018
Project members John Zonnevylle, Jade Walker, Tracey McIntyre and Emma Thompson.
Improving service delivery for eating disorders
This year, a project team in the Central Region reviewed a clinical network approach in maternal mental health. This led to thinking about how the approach could be applied to other areas, including helping people with the experience of eating disorders.
John Zonnevylle, Operations Manager responsible for the maternal mental health team and central region eating disorder team, says the team wanted to improve service delivery for people with the experience of eating disorders.
‘We knew the maternal mental health care model was similar, in that we support regional partner DHBs, who in turn support women and babies in their local area. We wanted to take those learnings, and apply them in a different way. Our aim is for people experiencing eating disorders to get the best possible treatment in their local area, and only need to use the tertiary service in Wellington when absolutely required.’
'The great work done by Jade Walker, Tracey McIntyre and the Specialist Maternal Mental Health Team has provided us with a good template to guide further developments.’
A regional co-ordinator had been put in place for the specialist maternal mental health service, to provide education and training to local services, improving and enhancing care for mothers before and after giving birth. Where a mother had a high level of distress, the central region opted to keep services in her own home and community.
A group of clinical leads and service leads supported by TAS, identified that the Central Region Eating Disorders service (CREDS) could benefit from a similar solution.
Performing a gap analysis - education co-ordination needed
Josh Palmer, Planning and Improvement Manager at TAS says ‘The maternal mental health service gave us a template, so now we’re able to perform a clear gap analysis. We can see what we need, and where we need to go. We know that CREDS could benefit from having another staff member skilled in education co-ordination, and facilitating connections across the region.’
John Zonnevylle reiterates this. ‘Unless you carve out time for education and support, people in clinical roles struggle to do it. Having a dedicated role has been one of the keys to success for the specialist maternal team.’
John says "TAS' support was integral to driving forward the project. TAS staff highlighted the opportunity to use our learning, and were a sounding board for defining our thinking. They gave us their full support. Time remained a challenge throughout the process, and we needed simple determination and perseverance to move to success".