Introduction

National Health Service (NHS) trusts have policies which outline best practice and should be followed by all staff to provide the best care to patients (Robertson et al., 2014). However, having a policy that is ethically robust and follows sound clinical practice is only going to be effective if it is followed and implemented.

Evidence suggests that the sheer volume of policies, their length, complexity and sometimes inaccessibility in practice means that they are not complied with (e.g. Blume, 2017). To understand this phenomenon of non-compliance with policies, Carthey et al. (2011) carried out a study in which they counted the number of policies and guidelines used across three physical health trusts. However, to our knowledge no study has explored whether this phenomenon exists within mental health trusts.

Objectives

The aim of this study is to quantify the number of policies and procedures that professionals working within mental health trusts must follow.

Methods

Using a vignette of a typical patient referred to mental health services and a list of current NHS policies within a mental health trust, mental health nurses will be asked to select the number of policies that would have needed to be read, understood and followed for the case. The time taken to find the relevant policies and read them, using an agreed universal reading speed, will be calculated.

Results

It is predicted that this phenomenon will also exist in mental health services.

Conclusions

This will have important implications for navigation and development of policies that will likely impact patient care.