Psychological therapies and interventions - national implementation guide 2: delivery improvement tools

The Psychological Therapies Self-Assessment Tool

The self-assessment tool supports the implementation of the National Specification and helps services assess current delivery of psychological therapies and interventions against the Specification outcomes. The tool identifies areas of good practice and areas where service provision could be improved and aligns with the seven outcomes in the National Specification, which apply to services. These are set out under ‘What this means for services, teams, and professionals delivering psychological practice’.

The Director / Head of Psychology should regularly oversee the completion of the tool and should be designated as the named lead responsible for planning and coordinating the completion and return of assessments. When required this person should identify additional leads for each area such as psychology leads and the business management team for psychology to complete the assessment.

It is helpful to consider available sources of evidence prior to completing the self-assessment, as well as resources required for completion. Discussing each of the assessment questions with appropriate members of staff within the service to decide how well an outcome is currently being met is advised. All services and teams are set up differently depending on local circumstance and need, therefore the approach taken may need to be adapted to meet local service delivery. The aim is to identify good practice as well as gaps in evidence and areas for improvement. Narrative will be extremely helpful to aid understanding.