Making it work: the experiences of delivering a community mental health service during the COVID 19 pandemic

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore how Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT) staff responded to delivering a service in a crisis. Background: The pandemic forced rapid and innovative change to care delivery. Knowledge about staff experiences may contribute to different approaches to managing staff during future pandemics and could be used in the design and implementation of interventions to support frontline mental health staff working to deliver community services. Methods: : A qualitative semi-structured interview approach was adopted. Twenty-one staff from a CMHT in the North West of England, UK were recruited and interviewed remotely. Interviews took place in June and July 2020, three months after the UK entered its first national lockdown. Results: : Analysis identified the approaches used by staff, from senior leadership down to those on the frontline, to try to make the service work in difficult circumstances. At every level of the organization staff talked about the challenges and strategies arising from a desire to deliver a service during the pandemic. The data is discussed under four headings; ‘senior trust managers trying to make it work’, ‘individuals making it work’, ‘making it work as a team’; and ‘making it work through working at home’. Clear communication of messages proved key across all areas, to ensure that government guidelines were followed, and that contact with service users and care delivery was directed at keeping people safe. Conclusion: In this study it was clear that the initial response to the pandemic involved the imposition of boundaries on staff by the Trust senior leadership to ensure the most vulnerable service users received a service while staff were kept safe. The data raises questions about how these boundaries were determined and whether the same outcome could have been achieved through involving staff more in the making of decisions about the delivery of services.