Ardens has created a variety of resources to assist with identifying patients who may have Mental Health issues, and to support their ongoing management once diagnosed.  


Recording Information on the Management of Patients with Mental Health Issues 

The Ardens Mental Health clinical template has been designed to standardise consultations, ensuring clinicians are following the latest national guidelines and recording accurate coding of data.  

 

To locate the Ardens Mental Health Template, access the relevant patient record. Open a new consultation and select the  Run Template  option (if not in consultations, click on the Add button on the EMIS ribbon, followed by Data Using Template option).

 

This will open the Template Picker screen. If you have accessed any templates before, these will display to the left of the screen. Search for the template by typing “mental” in the search box. 


This will return the  Mental Health (Ardens)  template (alternatively select the Ardens > Chronic disease templates folder to the right of the screen). 


All the Ardens Chronic Disease Templates follow the latest NICE guidance and best practice information. They include a National contracts page for capturing QOF requirements and Review pages to complete a structured review. 

 

Any information displayed in red relates to payment purposes such as QOF, Network Contract DES or local payment.  Please note - if the information is relevant for the current financial year, you do not need to duplicate this information.  


The Mental Health (Ardens) template includes all requirements for the Mental Health SMI review, these elements are indicated by bold black writing. At present, SMI reviews include patients with diagnosis of a bipolar or psychotic disorder. A patient with depression, anorexia or another mental health illness could also be defined as having a Severe Mental Illness and could have the ‘On SMI Register’ read code added to their record, but because of how QOF has historically defined Mental Health as bipolar and psychotic disorders only, these patients are not included in SMI reviews at present.



For clinicians requiring completing a full review, the Review pages should be used. These pages include contract requirements, requirements for the SMI review and additional non-core elements providing a comprehensive review for your patient.  There are also hyperlinks to direct you to NICE guidance and useful external websites.



Please ensure you record that you have completed the Mental health annual physical examination using the data field provided.



The Review & Recall page enables users to code an annual review has been completed. For patients requiring an interim review (e.g. after starting the patient on new medication), completing the ‘Mental health review follow-up’ field and entering a future date, will trigger the Ardens Diary Recall System. For more information please see the following  support article.   



The template contains many helpful links and information including links to NICE guidance and leaflets for your patients within the Management Guidance and Patient Resources  pages. 

 

Please note  – for patients presenting with multiple long-term conditions, you may wish to use the Ardens  Multi-Morbidity Templates. 


Ardens SMI physical health check alert

If your patient is outstanding 1 or more of the core physical health check components, an alert will display in the pink box.  Double clicking the alert will open the SMI Physical Health Review template displaying current achievement status of the 6 'core' elements and will allow you to enter data where appropriate.  The green tick displays where the element has been achieved and the red cross denotes data that is missing.




This template is available to use as a stand alone template to record the 6 'core' elements.  For the additional 'non-core' elements please use the Ardens Mental Health template.  


To locate the Ardens SMI 6 Core Physical Health Check Elements Template, access the relevant patient record. Open a new consultation and select the Run Template  option (if not in consultations, click on the Add button on the EMIS ribbon, followed by Data Using Template option).  From the Template Picker screen search for the template by typing 'smi 6' in the search box.




Ardens Clinical Safety Alerts 

The Ardens resources includes Clinical Safety alerts to flag important MHRA drug safety and NICE guidance information that may be missed. The alerts are triggered on certain activity in the patient record e.g. entering a particular code or prescribing specific drugs. 

 

A clinical safety alert will be displayed in the pink box if your patient has been issued lithium within the last 6 months, however they have not had relevant tests. 


Graphical user interface, text, application Description automatically generated


Ardens Searches 

There are various searches that might be useful to support practices with the care of Mental Health patients:

  • Ardens LTC Recall System - a month of birth recall system, designed to recall a patient for multiple QOF conditions at once.  These searches will ensure your Mental Health patients are attending their annual review. 
  • Diary Recall System - allows practice staff to easily manage diary recalls for blood tests, injections, procedures, and follow-ups, including Mental Health interim reviews.   
  • Medication Related Searches - medication related searches to support practices with identifying patients on medication that may need extra care or monitoring. 
  • Prescribing Monitoring Searches - searches to assist practices with drug monitoring to ensure the correct tests are completed.
  • Ardens Case Finders - contains a suite of searches to support practices to improve data quality and ensure QOF payments are correctly calculated.
  • SMI Searches - searches to help practices monitor and support patients with a Severe Mental Illness.


Ardens Document Templates 

Ardens includes many auto-populating standardised document templates for practices. The Ardens document templates folder includes a Universal Care Plan document which extracts relevant information, allowing a care plan to be saved/printed and/or shared.  You may find this document useful for your Mental Health patients. 


To access the document template, click on  Document  >  Create Letter. 


The  New Patient Letter  screen will display,  click on the magnify glass  to search for the required template. 


This will launch the  Find Document Templates  screen.  Search for the 'Universal Care Plan' template  using the search box provided or folder navigation pane (located in 'Care Planning' folder within the Ardens National Documents folder). Select the template and click on  OK. 


Table Description automatically generated



If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: support-emis@ardens.org.uk