Improving across the boundaries of Acute and Mental Health

Our programme to support teams working at the interface between acute emergency departments and mental health to develop solutions to local issues.

We are committed to supporting members to implement improvement solutions to known national challenges.

One of these challenges is what happens at the interface between the emergency department and secondary mental health services, and how a person with mental health needs presenting at A&E is cared for and managed.

Resolving this is critical to improving care and patient experience and outcomes for people with mental health needs. It is also important for dealing with operational challenges, improving processes and relationships between staff.

Our new improvement collaborative programme delivered in partnership with NHS England's Mental Health Improvement Support Team seeks to strengthen and encourage cross system working by supporting practical, real-time testing of improvement ideas across these boundaries.

The development programme - interface working across mental health and acute care

The programme will run for 12-months from May 2025 to April 2026. There will be a total of six virtual learning sessions, supported by three webinars.

Throughout the programme, all teams will receive extensive support to design and implement solutions to overcome challenges to interface working in your areas.

Sessions and content include understanding health inequalities, culture and leadership, exploring the problem, understanding the data, testing out ideas, implementing improvements, learning and reviewing progress, and spreading and sustaining change.

We will also share best practice from trusts delivering great improvements in this area, and guidance, tools and resources from NHS England.

All of the material will be informed by improvement methodology, and the sessions will be presented in a safe, non-judgmental space, where you will also be able to hear from other teams working on similar issues in different parts of the country.

Teams will also have the chance to attend a learning webinar later in the programme which will be chosen by the attendees of the programme – the people's choice.

Programme schedule
You will benefit from a structured course of resources, webinars and learning sessions focused on proven improvement methodology, as well as examples of best practice to be inspired by. All of the sessions will be delivered remotely, with the details as follows:
- Introduction and welcome to the programme - (11:00-12:00, 14 May 2025)
- Session one: Launch: Understanding the problem (10:00-12:30, 21 May 2025)
- Session two: Measurement & scoping out potential solutions (13:30-16:00, 23 July 2025)
- Session three: Human factors & behavioral change (13:30-16:00, 26 November 2025)
- Session four: Testing out improvement ideas (10:00-12:30, 24 September 2025)
- Session five: On-going testing & sustainability (10:00-12:30, 28 January 2026)
- Session six: Celebration: Recognition, spread & sharing (13:30-16:00, 29 April 2026)
- Webinar one: Understanding health inequalities (11:00-12:30, 18 June 2025)
- Webinar two: Leading through change (11:00-12:30, 22 October 2025)
- Webinar three: Topic to be confirmed according to needs expressed during the programme (11:00-12:30, 18 March 2026)
A more detailed overview of the programme content and relevant dates is available on this slide.

Applications for the programme in 2025 have now closed and are now being shortlisted. All teams will receive a response around the end of March. Please contact emma.fulton@nhsconfed.org for any enquiries.

We will continue to update this page over the course of the 12-month programme to share news and resources. You can also view our interface improvement learning hub here, which includes video guides and other resources, curated from a previous interface improvement programme we ran in 2024 to support teams working at the boundaries of primary and secondary care.