Abstract

Poor mental health has been highlighted as one of the largest health issues that our society faces. There has also been a lot of press headlines about the lack of provision and the quality of mental health services. As with many other health services there is a drive to improve the delivery to increase quality and safety. The prevailing culture in an organisation is seen as a key factor to improvement. In this work, we used the Manchester Patient Safety Framework (MaPSAF) tool to gauge the safety culture in the crisis services in one mental health trust before and after the introduction of a service improvement tool and during a period of intense organisational reform. Overall, the results suggest that the services have a bureaucratic culture and that shifting the culture may be difficult to achieve through conventional organisational reform.