Guidance
This guideline covers the period before, during and after a person is admitted to, and discharged from, a mental health hospital. It aims to help people who use mental health services, and their families and carers, to have a better experience of transition by improving the way it’s planned and carried out.
The Care Quality Commission uses NICE guidelines as evidence to inform the inspection process.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- overarching principles for good transition
- planning for admission and discharge
- out-of-area admissions
- support for families and carers
Who is it for?
- Providers of care and support in inpatient and community mental health and social care services
- Front-line practitioners and managers in inpatient and community mental health and social care services
- Commissioners of mental health services
- People who use inpatient and community mental health services, their families and carers
Is this guideline up to date?
We checked this guideline in January 2021. We found no new evidence that affects the recommendations in this guideline.
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.