Owner:	PMI Clinical Lead	Review:	Annually	Classification:	1 (proprietary)
Author:		Version:	4.0	Status:	Published
Date Published:	4/02/2023	Code:	CPTS0115

Network Therapist Welcome Pack

Contents	Page

1. About Vita Health Group

Vita Health Group celebrates life. Improving lives physically and mentally drives everything we do.

We work in partnership with the NHS to provide mental and physical health services, work with the UK’s largest companies to help support their workforce and provide a full range of physiotherapy services to private customers.

Vita Health Group is an award-winning specialist for corporate Mental Health.

We provide people with Mental Health support and treatment through corporate organisations, government bodies, the NHS, and insurance groups.

Welcome

Leadership – We lead the way through innovation and continuous improvement.

People centred – We support, develop and value each other, so together we can make a difference.

Customer focused – We are passionate about going above and beyond for our customers.

Quality – We hold each other accountable and strive to deliver excellence.

Integrity – We treat each other with respect and honesty.

2. Who we are

Key Contacts

Network Clinical Advisory team

To support you in your role you will have access to an experienced Network Clinical Advisory Team comprised of Senior Psychological Therapists/Counsellors and Assistant Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (APWP). The team will provide you with ongoing support, answering contractual clinical queries and provide guidance. The clinical team may contact you regarding notes, reports and GP letters and any queries they may have regarding your clients.

There is an expectation that you will be engaging in regular clinical supervision independently. This should follow the standards established by your accrediting organisation/s (e.g. BABCP, BACP, UKCP, NCS, HCPC, BPS etc).

The clinical support provided by Vita Health Group is primarily focused on ensuring clinical practice adheres to the requirements of our various customers and should be seen as additional to your own clinical supervision. An exception to this would be any risk disclosed by any client. We require this to be shared with our clinical team to ensure safety and to support co-ordinating treatment.

3. Requirements to work with Vita

For us to deliver evidence based psychological therapies in line with NICE guidance, the relevant professional bodies and to meet the quality standards set by our customers it is important we have the correct management and measures in place for our network to ensure they adhere to our governance and processes.

Summary of Accreditation Requirements

To join our network professionals, need to be accredited with one of the following relevant to the therapy specialism:

• BABCP Full Accreditation (Provisional can be accepted based on 5 years of CBT experience)
• BACP Accredited or Senior Accredited (Individual and Registered status cannot be accepted)
• UKCP Accreditation
• NCS Accreditation (Accredited Professional Registrant and Senior Accredited Registrant only)
• DIT – course accredited through BPC
• COSCA Accreditation
• HCPC Practitioner Psychologist (additional Chartered with BPS Optional) 
• EMDR Accreditation (EMDR UK & EMDR Europe)
• ACAT – (CAT Only - excluding trainee’s)

Quality and Safety requirements

• Enhanced DBS with child and adult barred list - this must be dated within the last 3 years and appropriate for the current role. A new check must be requested if not.
• Certificates of Public and Professional indemnity insurances set to a minimum identity of 1 million pounds set to cover business activities to include the practitioner’s model of psychological delivery.
• ICO registration for data protection.
• Minimum of 3 years’ post graduate experience for our Counsellors (BACP, NCS Prof Accred, UKCP, COSCA)
• Evidence of highest qualification(s) relating to practised therapy 
• Proof of required Accreditation (registers to be checked)
• Clear and recent photographs of treatment space if registering for Face to Face therapy (including therapy room, front of building, entrance and any communal areas)
• Name and contact details of Clinical Supervisor
• Current mandatory training (dated within the last 3 years). Mandatory training is listed below:

Mandatory Training for All Therapists:

• Information Governance
• Safeguarding Adults Levels 1-3
• Safeguarding Children Levels 1-3
• Preventing Radicalisation (Prevent)
• Awareness of equality, diversity & human rights
• Conflict Resolution

Mandatory Training for Therapists offering ‘in-clinic’ sessions (in addition to above):

• Infection Prevention
• Health & Safety
• Basic Life Support
• Fire Awareness

Premises

• Therapy must not be delivered from home environment - if a clinic is registered at a home address this needs to be an annexe and there needs to be a private entrance and exit and separate hygiene facilities.
• Clear and recent photographs must be provided for each location, including front of the building, treatment rooms and any communal/hygiene areas.

4. Working with us – the Basics

Our Case Management System

Vita Health Group (VHG) have developed a bespoke case management system, specifically with our mental health network therapists in mind. Upon registering with us, you will be provided with a unique username and password to our system and will be able to use this to accept referrals and provide therapy to patients. 

We developed this system to make your work with us simpler, easier, and more efficient – reducing the administrative burden of running your business while allowing you to focus on delivering high quality care to our clients. The system supports the following key activities:

8. Accessible via your internet browser, anywhere anytime.
9. Single system to open up your available appointment slots, manage your own diary and make appointment changes.
10. Securely accept referrals with confidential patient data.
11. Conduct remote appointments within the platform using the video feature.
12. Log session attendance/non-attendance & complete case notes.
13. Clients are able to complete clinical questionnaires ahead of sessions, automatically populating the system for you to view before and/or during the appointment.
14. Resource Homework Library – allocate an array of validated clinical resources to your client to support their treatment.
15. See your own reporting & statistics, including appointments and clinical recovery.

As part of your role as a Network Therapist you will be required to complete session notes, GP letters and discharge reports, directly within our case management system. This keeps all client information in one place, accessible to you as the treating therapist, and to VHG for customer monitoring and governance purposes. More guidance on this is included below.

Full user guides for all our system features can be accessed here. 

Receiving Referrals & Providing Availability

At VHG we will use our secure case management system to allocate you referrals. Within the system, you can open up available appointment slots for both new and existing clients, allowing us to allocate referrals to you. At VHG you are in control of how much availability you provide, and how many referrals you accept. The more availability you give, the more referrals we can allocate to you.

You can find out how to populate available appointments and accept referrals here. You can specify whether appointment times are available to new clients only, existing clients only, or both. There are also some great scheduling and diary features to make keeping your VHG clinical appointments organised easy.

This will allow VHG to book in clients to your available slots without the hassle of emails with multiple attachments. All referral information, including clinical assessment notes are attached to the patient file within the system, keeping patient notes safe and secure. 

Please note - if you are finding that you are not getting allocated enough referrals from VHG and would like more, it may be for one of the following reasons:

9. Availability not scheduled at the right times of peak demand
10. Not offering face to face appointments
11. High sessional fee’s
12. Less referrals in your geographical location

If you would like more referrals and are interested in joining our ‘Preferred Provider’ scheme, please speak to one of the team to understand if you would qualify to join. You can enquire about the preferred provider scheme by emailing Joinournetwork@vhg.co.uk 

Our DNA and Cancellation Policy

If a client cancels their appointment with less than 24 hours’ notice or simply fails to attend an arranged session this is classed as a ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA). In the event that this occurs please:

1. Log the appointment as a DNA within the system, within 24 hours of the missed appointment. 
2. Review risk and take any actions as necessary (e.g. GP letter if appropriate)
3. Create a ‘DNA – 7 day holding’ letter within the system and click ‘Save Reports & Letters Complete’. This will generate an email to the admin team who will email or send the letter to the client. 

Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found here. You do not need to complete a copy of our sessional note template. 

For most contracts, clients are allowed up to two DNAs, at which point they would be discharged. You can find our DNA and cancellation policy here.

 

Cases that have had two DNA’s and 7 days have passed with no contact from the client will be automatically reviewed by the Network Clinical Advisory team who will discharge the case accordingly. 

If a client cancels appointment in advance of their booked session, please re-arrange the appointment with the patient directly.

Our Invoicing Terms

Please read the following information before submitting your invoice/s to save any unnecessary delay in processing. You are able to raise invoices to us directly within our system, which we hope saves you valuable administrative time preparing invoices. We have developed the system to ensure invoicing us for any chargeable sessions is as simple as possible. To find out how to do this please click here. 

When creating invoices, the system will automatically create an invoice template with all of the relevant details pre-populated for you, including:

4. All chargeable appointments within the given invoice period*
5. All chargeable DNA appointments within the given period
6. Automatically exclude charges already invoiced
7. Quote the clients reference number and session date and time

*Please note that “chargeable appointments” are classified as appointments that have:

4. Occurred with the past 60 days, with an assigned client
5. Have been marked as attended by you and had session case notes completed on the system
6. If you are a preferred provider, qualify for payment under our guaranteed availability scheme
7. Any confirmed appointment that was not attended or cancelled by the client within 24 hours of the appointment date. (i.e. a chargeable DNA). 

If you think that something looks wrong on your invoice, please use the query button to contact us to resolve the matter. You can find out how to do this here. 

VHG Ltd shall pay the registered Therapist/Practice the Charges laid out in the Mental Health Provider Agreement, provided all required admin has been completed. To ensure that there are no issues with late payments, payment will be made to you by BACS transfer with the above payment dates, this is in line with our client’s terms with VHG.

Any assessment, interim or discharge reports required are to be provided as outputs inclusive with the agreed Charges and are required for payment to be made. Vita Health Group will hold any invoice until such administration is completed to a satisfactory level. If this is not achieved within 60 days of the oldest appointment date, the invoice will be rejected indefinitely, and payment will not be made. All such invoices shall be supplied in sufficient detail to justify the Charges (including, without limitation, any timesheets, associated client reports or other information required by Vita Health Group). In no circumstances shall Vita Health Group be required to pay any invoice for such Charges issued later than 60 days from the date of each appointment.

5. Working with our Patients / Our Clinical Model 

Risk & Safeguarding

As a Network Therapist, you will be expected to assess and manage risk and/or safeguarding issues with your clients both in-session and for any contact they may make with you outside of sessions, as appropriate within a psychological therapies context. A complete risk assessment is required at the first appointment, and this should be reviewed throughout therapy.

If you are concerned about a non-urgent risk to a client or safeguarding issue and would like to have the case reviewed, please request a case review within the Case Management System, find out how to do this by clicking here.  Our Clinical Advisory Team will review this and you may be contacted by one of our clinical team directly either via email or telephone if further information is required.

Please follow an appropriate risk protocol, ensuring the immediate safety of the client or any other at-risk individual, contacting the emergency services if required. If you require further support in the management of risk or safeguarding disclosures during your work with clients, you can contact our risk duty by calling 03332220710 or emailing PTSriskduty@vhg.co.uk inside office hours of 9am-5pm.

The full VHG PTS Risk assessment and management guidance can be found here.

How to Conduct Sessions with clients

As a network therapist, you can choose to complete appointments either face to face, or remotely via Video or telephone. When scheduling your appointment availability via our system, you can choose whether the appointment is available for face to face or remote work, according to your preferences. To find out how to do this, click here.

Our system has a feature to allow therapists to conduct video and voice calls directly within it. You may find this a helpful feature as a convenient and secure way to conduct appointments, as you will see from the user guides, you are also able to make notes as you conduct the appointment which hope makes your therapy sessions as seamless and efficient as possible on our system. Please ensure to check the patients tenancy on their profile, not all patients will have access to the video link or call link through the system. If you are conducting a video session and the patient does not have access to the patient portal, please send a video link to the patient through email of the platform of your choice. If you are conduciting a voice sessions, please call outside of the system (only patients that have access to this platform is BUPA)

However, should you wish not to use our platform for conducting appointments, you have the flexibility to use your own choice of video Platform. However, we advise therapists not to use the free version of Zoom as this platform ends sessions at 40 minutes and would disrupt your therapy session. 

Completing Case Notes

As part of your role as a Network Therapist you will be required to complete session notes, questionnaires, GP letters, consent forms and discharge reports. These may vary depending on the contract and as such specific guidance will be provided. For all clients’ clear clinical notes are required, attached is an example of how these should be completed. Please ensure that all aspects of the notes are completed, you can find out how to do this here. 

It is required that all session notes are submitted within 24 hours of the session taking place. 

Please note, if you do not complete your case notes within 48 hours of the appointment date and time, you will be unable to complete these and will need to contact us by submitting a ticket here. 

Session Limits & requesting additional sessions. 

When you are sent a referral there will be a session limit assigned to the referral within the system. This is pre-populated by VHG. If you feel for clinical reasons that additional sessions are needed you will need to notify us at the earliest opportunity, so that we can ensure we review this in plenty of time. We recommend you do this with at least 3 sessions to spare. Detailed guidance on how to request additional sessions within the patient management system can be found here.

VHG sometimes need to attain authorisation from the employer or insurer – in these instances we will need to ensure the patient has consented to us contacting their employer or insurer for these reasons. 

Outcome Measures

MDS scores PHQ9 and GAD7 need to be completed at every session. Patients can complete these questionnaires directly within the system, up to 24 hours prior to the appointment date and time. If the patient has not done these ahead of the appointment you can complete these in the system via the patient health history.  

Where Disorder Specific Measures are used these must also be completed at the beginning, middle and end of therapy. Any customer specific questionnaires will be notified to you at point of referral. 

Work Status & Occupational Functioning

Please review work status every session and explore any issues impacting on general functional at work and explore steps to thrive at work. If client is off work, explore barriers and any assistance needed to aid return to work. This is because, return to work is a vital social indicator of recovery and rehabilitation leading to better health outcomes and quality of life (Mental Health Foundation, 2009).

Please ensure that you review the client’s work status at each session and comment on this in your notes. The accuracy of this information is vital as our contracts require us to report on it. Similarly, employment/being in work is important for maintaining our general health and well-being: it gives us a purpose (and an income), promotes independence, allows us to develop social contacts, and is a factor in preventing both physical and mental health problems (Mental Health foundation, 2012).

Please select from the options provided:

4. At work – if working on full duties
5. Restricted duties – if on phased return
6. Off work
7. Plans to return to work – to be used if the client has been off work and plans to return to work on an upcoming agreed date with employer.

Requesting a clinical review

If you want the clinical team to review a case during your work with a client, please indicate this by clicking the box in the Case Management System here.

This could be for a variety of reasons such as; querying a change of therapy/therapist, review of suitability for therapy. Our Clinical Advisory team will review the case and may contact you via email or telephone as required.

The clinical performance of our network therapists is managed in the same way as internal staff using a live Clinical Dashboard within the patient management system. This provides analysis at a therapist level as well as a customer and overall service level.  

This includes outcome data on discharged cases inclusive of:

• Completion rate
• Recovery rate
• DNA rate
• Average case length

This includes data on active cases inclusive of:

4. Outstanding clinical notes completion rates
5. Risk status
6. Average case length
7. DNA rate

In addition, monitoring of the volume and nature of complaints, as well as behaviours and responsiveness identified through contact with the VHG Network Clinical Advisory Team and liaison with other staff members is taken into considerations when reviewing therapy quality, to ensure the highest standards of care are provided to our clients. 

Complaints & Incidents

Should a complaint be received relating to the therapist the VHG Complaints Management Policy (QA9100A) will be followed. Network Therapists are expected to fully engage in this process, providing written statements where necessary. 

Where an incident or serious incident has taken place (e.g. death of a service user, high risk incident, near miss, data breach), the VHG Incident Policy (QA9100B) will be followed, and the VHG Network Clinical Advisory Team will investigate the incident and liaise with the Network Therapist accordingly.

Auditing

Informal audits of session notes are completed by the VHG Network Clinical Advisory Team during case reviews as part of the review process, with any areas for improvement communicated to the Network Therapists.

Formal audits of Network Therapists include:

1. Annual audit of Professional Status, including:

5. Supervision adherence
6. Insurance cover
7. Accreditation status
8. ICO certificate
9. Current mandatory training certificates

2. Audit of Professional Practice:

3. Treatment notes
4. Risk screening & management plan
5. Correspondence (discharge report/GP letter)

The Network Therapist will be managed in line with the following performance management guidance:

Grade	Performance Management
A1	Follow annual audit schedule as planned. Feedback to be provided to therapist highlighting particular areas of good practice.
A2	Follow annual audit schedule as planned. Minor learning points to be provided to therapist with any recommendations for support and training that can be provided by the VHG Network Clinical Advisory Team.
A3	Feedback to be provided to therapist regarding areas of improvement with offer of support and training as appropriate from the VHG Network Clinical Advisory Team.  Re-audit required within 1 month to confirm improvements have been made. If a second consecutive A3 or U audit outcome, escalate to PTS PMI Clinical Lead for further recommendations and follow up audit schedule. Suspension from network may be considered.
U	Immediate re-audit required to review safety and evaluate clinical risk – in some cases this may lead to an immediate pause on client contact. Escalation to PTS PMI Clinical Lead. If a second consecutive A3 or U audit outcome, escalate to PTS PMI Clinical Lead for further recommendations. Suspension from network may be considered.

6. Our Refer a Friend Bonus Scheme

For any new Clinicians referred to our Network you will receive £150*. Simply make an introduction and we will do the rest!* 

2. £150 payable on completion of 50 clinical contacts by the referred candidate
3. Invoice us separately when you qualify

Refer a friend

* Please note there are some terms and conditions:

8. Did Not Attends are not counted towards the 50 clinical contacts.
9. Payments to employees are subject to tax and National Insurance.
10. The scheme applies to the introduction of Mental Health Network Clinicians only
11. New Mental Health Network Clinicians only, internal referrals do not qualify (i.e. current VHG employees moving to the Network).
12. Receiving individual needs to be actively Onboarded and accepting referrals at the time bonus is due to be paid. 
13. Actively Onboarded means not subject to any sanctions, Do Not Use lists or cancelled.
14. Payment can be made to a single individual only.
15. We reserve the right to alter or terminate this scheme at any time