Psychiatry New Client Onboarding

---
name: psychiatry-new-client-onboarding
description: |
  Onboard people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress smoothly into a psychiatrist's service in a mental health unit and community mental health team base.
  TRIGGERS - Use when a psychiatrist needs a new client onboarding pack for people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress in a mental health unit and community mental health team base.
category: Psychiatry
license: MIT
version: 1.0
---
# New Client Onboarding Pack — Psychiatry

Onboard people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress smoothly into a psychiatrist's service in a mental health unit and community mental health team base. The deliverable is an onboarding pack: welcome information, expectations, first steps and contacts.
This skill is written for a psychiatrist working with people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress in a mental health unit and community mental health team base.

## When to use
- You are a psychiatrist preparing, delivering or reviewing this part of your work in a mental health unit and community mental health team base.
- You need a defensible, repeatable approach that produces an onboarding pack: welcome information, expectations, first steps and contacts.
- A colleague, auditor or client asks how this was done and what evidence supports it.

## Key Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|------|---------|
| Liaison psychiatry | psychiatric care for patients in general hospitals |
| Formulation | an explanation of how a person's difficulties developed and are maintained |
| Sectioning | detaining a person under mental health law for assessment or treatment |

## Workflow
1. **Step 1** - Send a welcome pack before the first appointment: what the service does, what happens first, what to bring from psychiatric assessments
2. **Step 2** - Set expectations honestly — timescales, costs where relevant, and how progress on risk assessment completion will be shared
3. **Step 3** - Cover rights and responsibilities on both sides, including confidentiality limits and how to raise concerns
4. **Step 4** - Make the first contact easy: named contact, directions to a mental health unit and community mental health team base, and what to do if plans change
5. **Step 5** - Check in after the first session or milestone and fix friction early, before it becomes disengagement or suicide risk not recognised

## Profession-Specific Components
| Component | Details for Psychiatry |
|-----------|-------------------------------|
| Core documentation | psychiatric assessments; risk formulations; care plans; mental health act documentation |
| Core tools & equipment | observation level charts; de-escalation spaces; electronic prescribing systems; outcome questionnaires |
| People involved | people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress; the psychiatrist; colleagues and other services in a mental health unit and community mental health team base |
| Primary record | psychiatric assessments — keep it current, dated and attributable |

## Output Format
**Context:** [Situation in a mental health unit and community mental health team base] | **Objective:** [What this must achieve] | **Audience:** [people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress and other stakeholders]

The finished output is an onboarding pack: welcome information, expectations, first steps and contacts, structured as:
1. Summary of position and evidence
2. Detail, following the workflow above
3. Decisions, actions, owners and dates
4. Review point and escalation route

### Action Plan
1. **Immediate:** Confirm scope, consent and the evidence available in psychiatric assessments.
2. **Short-term:** Complete the workflow steps and record outcomes against risk assessment completion.
3. **Medium-term:** Review results, close actions, and update local procedures in a mental health unit and community mental health team base.

## Success Metrics
| Metric | Target | Method |
|--------|--------|--------|
| risk assessment completion | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from psychiatric assessments and reviewed on a set cycle |
| community follow-up within 7 days of discharge | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from psychiatric assessments and reviewed on a set cycle |
| readmission rate | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from psychiatric assessments and reviewed on a set cycle |
| patient-reported outcome change | Agree a local target and track the trend | Measured from psychiatric assessments and reviewed on a set cycle |

## Guardrails & Quality Checks
- Never let this happen: suicide risk not recognised.
- Never let this happen: absconding from the unit.
- Never let this happen: medication side-effects unmanaged.
- Work only within the competence and authority of a psychiatrist; escalate or refer anything beyond it.
- Record facts and observations, not speculation, and keep records confidential to a mental health unit and community mental health team base's rules.
- Verify names, dates, figures and measurements twice before anything is issued or signed off.
- Use only real, verified information from the case in hand — never invent results, credentials or evidence.

## Example (illustrative)
A psychiatrist in a mental health unit and community mental health team base applies this workflow for people experiencing mental illness and psychological distress: they open
psychiatric assessments, work through the five steps using observation level charts, and close by recording
the outcome against risk assessment completion and agreeing the next review date. (Illustrative example only —
replace with the real details of the case in hand.)