Care Pathways - Why Every Health + Mental Health Programme Needs Them

In this video, I'm going to explain what a care pathway is, and why every single health, mental health and wellbeing strategy that I've put in place in your organization has one, and why they will need them. So first of all, what is a care pathway?

Well is exactly what it says on the tin it is a pathway through and for care. So very often used in hospitals for specific illnesses, you have your cancer care pathway, you have your gastroenterology, interology care pathways pathways through the system, I tend to build them into organizations to deal with specific things. So for example, a care pathway might link up all of the different activities and people involved in something like absence management.

So every good organization should have an absence management policy. And that's not just a policy of what to do when somebody's off sick. A care pathway will outline all of the different aspects of care needed. So where does occupational health fit in? What's the role of HR, what's the role of the line manager, what support is offered to the employee before they're absent, whilst they're absent when they're back on their return to work, what reasonable adjustments they might need when they come back to the office, and the role of different players such as employee line manager HR and occupational health in that. And also if using occupational house, what sorts of illnesses will trip into occupational houses remit and what is just normal absence. So that's a good example of a care pathway.

Another care pathway I've often put into organizations would be an occupational health referral care pathway. So depending on if you have occupational health and how you use them, who refers you there is it the individual is HR is the line manager who manages that process in and out of occupational health, and where's everyone fit.

Now, these are examples less of care, although they are care pathways, but of process, but where I have put in care pathways for specific illnesses within an organization. It's included things like Musculoskeletal and mental health. So muscular skeletal is one of the largest reasons for absence. And it's one of the things that's most expensive in terms of private health insurance. So having a really clear care pathway of how to navigate your way through different health providers, and different systems around muscular skeletal is really important, especially as health insurers often have their own triage and different systems around musculoskeletal skeletal. Likewise, an organizational mental health policy might have a mental health care pathway, where if an employee exhibits certain symptoms, such as tiredness or depression, or something like that, that might have an automatic occupational health referral.

And then you've got all of the different things like an employee assistance programs, or counseling or other things that might be fit into that. So in short, a care pathway is through a is a list on a pathway through to get care for things with different organizations, different players, different providers, and the different roles and responsibilities of different people in the organization, such as the individuals and line manager, the role of HR, the role of occupational health and what they are.

Often, when I'm working with organizations, this is a bit that's quite badly defined. And there's usually a bit of a scramble when something goes wrong to understand whose roles and responsibilities things are, which is why having and then promoting really clear care pathways is a really important and necessary part of a proper end to end health, mental health and wellbeing strategy. So I'd love your thoughts on this below.

Are there any care pathways that I have missed that you've put into place? Have you got other ways of getting people through other than just policies? And you know, any other comments you'd like to have? Look forward to hearing them below