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The true potential of quality improvement for psychiatrists and mental healthcare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2025

Amar Shah Open the ORCID record for Amar Shah [Opens in a new window]
Amar Shah*
Affiliation:
A consultant forensic psychiatrist and has held the role of Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) since 2017. He leads at executive and board level on quality, performance, strategy, planning, analytics and communications. Amar has led the approach to quality at ELFT for over a decade, and has embedded a large-scale quality improvement infrastructure and quality management system, with demonstrable results across key areas of organisational performance. Amar is the National Clinical Director for Improvement at NHS England, leading the application of improvement across England’s health and care system. He is the national improvement lead for mental health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, leading a number of large-scale improvement collaboratives on topics such as restrictive practice, workforce wellbeing and equalities. Amar is chair of the Scientific Advisory Group at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and also acts as faculty with IHI, teaching and guiding improvers and healthcare systems across the world. He is a member of the Q Advisory Board at the Health Foundation and a member of the reference group for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. He is on the health advisory board for the UCL Global Business School for Health, and a council member for the Healthcare Costing for Value Institute. He is honorary professor at the University of York, and an honorary member of the Faculty of Public Health. Amar has completed an executive MBA in healthcare management, a masters in mental health law and a postgraduate certificate in medical education. Amar is a regular national and international keynote speaker at healthcare improvement conferences and has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in the field of quality management. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2024 for services to healthcare improvement.
*
Correspondence Amar Shah. Email: amarshah@nhs.net
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Summary

Nidumolu et al’s article in BJPsych Advances illustrates how psychiatrists might use the key concepts of quality improvement (QI) to analyse and improve mental healthcare systems. This commentary on the article points out the importance of recognising the type of problem for which QI is best suited and the role of softer, relational approaches alongside the technical tools of improvement. It also highlights that QI can bring broader benefits to a team and organisation, including improvements in staff engagement and well-being. In mental health services, psychiatrists can play a key role in enabling and role-modelling this approach to problem-solving, as their extensive experience of leading multidisciplinary teams and shared decision-making with patients can be a great asset in QI.

Keywords

Quality improvementmental health servicesclinical governanceeducation and trainingadaptive designs

Information

Type
Commentary
Information
BJPsych Advances , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , July 2025 , pp. 254 - 256
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists

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Footnotes

†

Commentary on … Applying quality improvement to clinical practice: primer for psychiatrists. See this issue.

References

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