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An audit pack for monitoring the care programme approach

The care programme approach (CPA) refers to an approach used by specialist psychiatric services to assess the care needs of, and provide a package of care for, people with severe mental illness. This pack contains two booklets: one constitutes a monitoring tool for the CPA while the other provides background and explanatory notes about the content of the tool. The monitoring tool is intended as a self-audit instrument to help services identify organisation or practice issues which might benefit from further examination. Section A considers the structure required for successful CPA, covering the quality of inter-agency working, the presence of policies and procedures, and management and administrative support. Section B contains standards statements relating to each step of the CPA process and Section C looks at outcomes, suggesting some measures to indicate the extent to which CPA has benefited patient care. The person/s responsible, and appropriate methods, for monitoring each element of the tool are suggested. Cites 17 references.