Do you feel like needless admin steals clinical time?

[miriam]

A poster on twitter said

NHS computers are a very expensive indulgence & enable mission creep. Vast amounts of information are entered by clinician after every session, including upkeeping patient's benefits, work details, employment situation, hours etc. All with time stolen from patient care.
In some psychological services staff are having to keep up to 3 diaries, fill in information of as many as 6 different software 'apps', keep patient notes on two major systems and perform up to 17 actions as a consequence of making one safeguarding report.

Does this reflect your experience? Please vote and comment about which service you work in and whether your service collects information about benefits, employment or other data (beyond the demographics required for equal ops monitoring), and whether you feel this steals time you could be putting to more productive use for patient/service recipient benefit.

I left the NHS 10 years ago, but this doesn't resonate for me. I generally felt like we collected little more than notes, demographics and whether appointments were attended. I suppose there were also referral reason codes, outcome measures, and monthly summaries of how we spent our time. But it all felt like it served the work we were doing, rather than being a burden that detracted significantly from the time we could spend on delivering care, and we never collected financial/benefits information or details about employment. So I'm wondering if it is an IAPT or AMH thing, a change in culture since I left, or something esoteric to the individual on twitter that doesn't reflect widespread practice. So let me know your thoughts!

[Geishawife]

I don't think this is an IAPT or AMH thing per-se, but I do wonder if the information gathered varies between client groups. In my current (staff support) role we do not collect financial information and there are very few safeguarding reports, but we do duplicate a fair bit of information that is readily availble/recorded elsewhere. In my previous NHS role in Older Adults we collected MASSES of information (includig financial information) that was nearly always then duplicated by the Adult Social Care team and recorded twice because it had to be on both systems. We could have multiple safeguarding meetings and for every meeting had to fill out multiple forms, often in triplicate. Whilst I appreciate that vulnerable people need protecting, it really did feel like overkill! It would be interesting to know if, currently, there is much variation between client groups.

[Randomswirls]

I think it depends on job role as well where I have worked different trusts and services - masses of information was collected but it tended to be done by care coordinators which was rarely psychologists

[Serendipity]

It resonates with my experience - needing to maintain two electronic diaries, collect at every contact outcome measures data using three questionnaires and data on employment, benefits, whether prescribed/taking medication, HONOS cluster...there's more but I'm blocking it out! It's enormously time consuming and considered part of the minimum data set we need to input, which is additional to notes about the client contact, attendance, whether it was phone/zoom/in person, whether they were late, where the appointment was...

[do4k]

Anyone interested in this phenomenon, of increased data collection and administrative tasks, might enjoy reading the late David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs, which explores this issue from an anthropological perspective.

While the broad thrust of his argument is that many in society work unnecessary and pointless jobs because for various different reasons including the way our economy is structured, he also describes how real, important and necessary jobs (I would hope practitioner psychologists fall under this umbrella!), are subject to what he calls bullshitization, seemingly endless forms and pseudowork.