Knowledge & Library Services (KLS) Evidence Briefing July 2021
- This briefing summarises the evidence on interventions that lead to an increase in uptake of physical health checks for people with a severe mental illness (SMI), from 1 January 2010 to 28 June 2021.
- Key messages
- there was an absence of evidence specifically looking at uptake of health checks for people with SMI
- there was no strong evidence as to whether an intervention to increase uptake of screening was more successful in primary or secondary care
- specific facilitators to screening uptake include: having team ‘champions’ to encourage screening, staff feeling ‘ownership’ with regard to physical health screening, stakeholder involvement, strong links to primary care and specialist services, and trust between patients and staff
- specific barriers to screening uptake include: workload issues, resource constraints, patient resistance to screening, appointment difficulties, fragmented links between primary and secondary care, staff resistance to engage in screening, lack of familiarity with health professionals, delayed appointments in noisy waiting areas
- interventions that appeared to improve screening included: mobile apps, attaching paper charts to medical records, electronic pop-up alerts for reminding clinicians and nurses to perform physical health checks, and nurse-led screening in community mental health
- a combination of 3 approaches (increased awareness/education, mobile physical health clinics, and letters sent to patients and GPs) proved successful, with 48% of SMI patients fully completing physical health checks, bloods and ECGs • people with SMI were 5-10% more likely to attend an NHS Health Check appointment than people without these condition
