Paper work

Odysseus

As the name suggests how much of this sh!t do you guys have to deal with. Of course patient notes are a must. I have a form that covers each day of the week which I name the patient, where I seen them or any or if they are not on a meth clinic, I also have to note what I’m doing when I’m not with a patient, e.g. meetings, supervision etc. I had these in monthly. Then there is client lists, travel, toil etc. Then there are referrals court reports things like that.

The reason I’m asking is that I also have to fill in form at the end of the year for the Health Research Board, which was always a pain, but I just did it. I have to fill in a full form for a patient I see who is not on one of our meth programmes, for those who are I previously handed the name and date of birth of those patients to the person who fills them in for those on our programmes.

Now there has been a drastic change to those forms they have doubled in size. I saw over 100 different individuals for therapy last year. I am now in a position where I have my client list, and those forms I hand in each month, apart form presenting issues etc I have to start with patient 1 check through the monthly forms for the year noting when I first seen them, what type of intervention it was, how many sessions and the date it ended. It’s a nightmare, hence my question, it’s getting to the stage now where I am seriously looking at blocking a morning or an afternoon a week just for paper work. I’m appalled at the idea of this, I understand why people are looking for this info, but whilst I think that blocking a half day for paper work will now be necessary I’m really appalled at the effect of this; namely not being available to do what I am trained to do, work with people.

Hence my question, how much paper work do you need to do? Did you think some or more of it are preventing your from working with people?

JuliusCaesar

While paperwork is the least favourite aspect of the job, the importance of it was brought home to me when I read a little about Florence Nightingale.

The reason she was able to bring about such changes was not because of her changes to nursing - although that's of course what she is remembered for - but because of her meticulous statistics.

Given the public bias (fed by the media) against public servants and the HSE, it is really important to be able to prove our worth to the administrators of the money. So don't look at it as time lost to clients, but time invested in order to ensure continual investment into psychological therapies, which will benefit hundreds of future patients.

Odysseus

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

While paperwork is the least favourite aspect of the job, the importance of it was brought home to me when I read a little about Florence Nightingale.

The reason she was able to bring about such changes was not because of her changes to nursing - although that's of course what she is remembered for - but because of her meticulous statistics.

Given the public bias (fed by the media) against public servants and the HSE, it is really important to be able to prove our worth to the administrators of the money. So don't look at it as time lost to clients, but time invested in order to ensure continual investment into psychological therapies, which will benefit hundreds of future patients.

I see your point Julius, but the paperwork I do justifies my employment as it is, without the other stuff. Whilst of course nobody like doing it, it has to be done. However, when it gets to the point where I block half a day per week just for it, really seems "a page too far" for me.

The public bias thing your spot on, but they are the ones crying about too much admin. We have taken cuts, and the next round is just around the corner, and now they want me to cut down on my patient contact time. It just doesn't make sense.

That particular piece of paper work is only used by drug services, I sure you guys in the mental health area have stuff of your own to do. That's why I'm curious about it, how much of a typical psychologists week is taken up on admin. I don't mean the time when we may take on projects that involve a lot of paper work, rather the normal 9-5 seeing clients times.

JuliusCaesar

Odysseus wrote: »

for the Health Research Board,
...... 1 check through the monthly forms for the year noting when I first seen them, what type of intervention it was, how many sessions and the date it ended.

Hence my question, how much paper work do you need to do? Did you think some or more of it are preventing your from working with people?

OK: I keep monthly stats- who was referred, who was assessed, who was discharged, and who is on my/our caseload/s. Then there's the Annual Report, which details (without names) how many people were assessed, what their presenting complaints were, how many sessions they were seen for, what the outcome was, what my/our other activities were - committees, team meetings, teaching, supervision undertaken and given, groups we ran/helped run, policies written, CPD done....etc etc. I get most of the information for the Annual Report from the monthly stats.

Mostly I do this, not because I have to, but because our waiting list is appallingly long and I want people to know there is a demand for the service, that the service is effective and efficient, so that there's no excuse for recruiting others to expand the service (if and when the HSE ever is allowed recruit again).

I did a presentation one time where I dug up all the financial info regarding cost of treating with medication versus therapy intervention, showing that the vast majority of our clients come off meds and maintain their gains and are then often discharged from the Mental Health Service altogether....had great fun doing that, though the information was really hard to come by.

HTH

Odysseus

Cheers Julius, pretty much the same to me then. I stuck with a backlog in the sense that much more detailed info is required this year for last years client. So I had to go back to each case and deal with it case by case. Anyway its done now, just finished to, and to top it off I go every mental health workers nightmare, a client very much at risk presenting in an emergency just as I was picking up my briefcase.

I very much know the points you made above, it just gets me that I seem to be doing the same stuff in different ways, I hand in stats monthly too, why can't the info be taken from that. It could be done, but it would mean my manager having to do it, as the stats name clients, and of course that can leave the service. Anyway we have a good system now which should prvent backlogs, but it does bug me about it effecting my clinical work. Cheers for the response, its was interesting to get an insight into things on your side of the fence.