This session will describe the aims and progress of the DEMoBinc study and its potential impact across Europe. The project has led to the development of a toolkit (the Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative Care - QuIRC) for assessing the living conditions, care and human rights of people with longer term mental health problems in European psychiatric and social care institutions. The study has been funded for 36 months by the European Commission and started in March 2007. It involves 11 centres across 10 countries: UK; Germany; Spain; Czech Republic; Bulgaria; Italy; Netherlands; Poland; Greece; Portugal.

The QuIRC assesses the provision of seven domains of care considered most important for recovery (built environment; therapeutic environment; treatments and interventions; self-management and autonomy; social inclusion; human rights; Recovery-orientated practice). A web-based version is under development that will provide performance reports for local and national care standard review. The QuIRC ratings have been compared against unit costs to give an assessment of the unit's value for money, and against service users’ quality of life, autonomy, experiences of care and markers of recovery to test whether it can deliver a proxy-measure of the unit's promotion of individuals’ human rights and recovery.

Chair: Dr Helen Killaspy

Speakers:

Dr Helen Killaspy & Tatiana Taylor: “An overview of the DEMoBinc project and development of QuIRC”

Sarah White: “Results of the QuIRC reliability testing, factor analysis and service user assessment”

Dr Patryk Piotrowski: “The Delphi Exercise in Poland”

Dr Thomas Kallert: “Development and use of QuIRC in Germany”