“Speeding up the road to recovery”: The Complex Recovery Assessment and Consultation (CRAC) service

The number of bed closures in mental health is on the rise, creating additional pressure on services, including acute mental health services. An efficient way of working is required in order to streamline the acute care pathway and decrease unnecessary delays to length of stay, ensuring all individuals can be offered an inpatient bed when in crisis. The Complex Recovery Assessment and Consultation (CRAC) service was created in order to support acute mental health inpatient clinicians in streamlining hospital stays for service users who present with complex presentations that require lengthier admissions (over 40 days) by offering assessment, advice, and intervention from a rehabilitation perspective. The team was also created to understand why individuals may require a lengthy hospital stay. Preliminary data showed that requiring a placement on discharge proved to be the most significant factor in increased length of stay and so the team took on a new role of discharge coordinator after around a year of operating. This involved assisting in decreasing any delays out of hospital through improved communication and dedicated time to complete tasks, such as completing paperwork for placement referrals and funding panels. Since taking on this role it was found that the time taken for individuals to be discharged to a rehabilitation or specialist placement decreased; a rehabilitation placement by 13.12 days and a specialist placement by 9.22 days. Discharge to a family address also decreased by 2.9 days and a home address by 2.47 days. Those patients with complex presentations benefit from having one dedicated team to coordinate the discharge process. Their lengthier acute inpatient stay is improved through streamlining care pathways, ultimately decreasing delays in discharge.