The Riverdale Care Pathway is designed with the aim of helping patients return to their best possible life at the point of discharge. We aim to engage patents, family, carers, community services (and schools for adolescent patients) in the process of assessment, formulation and treatment throughout a patient’s stay in the hospital.
Prior to admission: The care pathway begins with a pre-admission assessment in which all prospective patients get to meet a psychiatrist and a member of the clinical team to discuss their current needs and treatment options. If it is agreed by the patient, their family, and our team that Riverdale is the best treatment option, then an admission date is set.
On admission: A wider assessment will take place which will include meetings with other members of our clinical team including our GP, Dietician, Occupational Therapist, and one of our psychological therapists. These meetings are to help determine the patient’s broader treatment aims and agree plans to achieve these.
Throughout admission: The patient meets their wider team every week in a multi-disciplinary team meeting. This meeting is an opportunity for patients and their team to reflect on their treatment progress on a week to week basis, and for them and the team to discuss possible changes to treatment. This meeting considers issues such as the patient’s readiness for therapies, risks and benefits of taking leave from the hospital, and their current and future social, vocational, and occupational
opportunities.
Every 4 weeks a Care Programme Approach (CPA) meeting will be held with the patient, family members or carers, representatives of the clinical team, and representatives of their community services. This meeting considers the wider treatment goals, and makes an ongoing assessment of the patient’s readiness to be discharged to their home environment to continue treatment and recovery in the community.
Discharge: An indicative date for discharge will be set within 48hrs of admission. This is to give the patient and their family a general sense of the likely duration of their stay based on your health needs at the time of admission. The decision that a patient is actually ready for discharge is reached collaboratively with the patient and is usually decided at CPA meetings in consultation with the hospital and community staff. A definitive discharge date is always discussed well in advance to allow the patient to plan and practice their discharge needs before leaving the hospital.
We work hard to evaluate our care pathway. This has recently included publishing a paper describing our observations of the effects of admission to Riverdale.
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