User stories: Consolidating our service at West Kent Mind

User Stories

In this video, West Kent Mind’s lead counsellor and IT manager, Brian Pugsley, shares how the practice uses bacpac in a multi-user environment.

Brian reveals that he no longer has concerns around the security of patient data and the business continuity across multiple locations. He says that using bacpac may even enable further locations to open up!

West Kent Mind run a variety of mental health services at multiple locations in West Kent. They have three main areas of activity, their community well-being team who
provide mental health services to the community. They have a community development team who, as well as fundraising, offer a wide range of training. And they have their psychological therapy service.

Brian had always wanted to use client management software and assumed that it was going to be unaffordable, but it became obvious they would need to make the leap and bacpac was a cost-effective option. There were a couple of problems that they were having, one of which was that they were delivering psychological therapy from two different locations and they didn’t want to see paper notes being transferred between locations also with the increasing number of therapists and the increasing number of client contacts, they needed some way of bringing it all together.

“We chose bacpac client management software and it’s made an enormous difference to our day-to-day operations. The problem of operating from multiple locations has been solved. We may even open up further locations now that we have all of the notes in one place. Our therapists love it. They just have to click a button and write their client notes and they can even write their client notes from home if they need to, and they can get on with the important work with their clients. it’s so much easier to assign a client to a therapist now because the assessment is in bacpac and they have access to everything that they need to get started with that client.

I’m really confident about the security of the data within bacpac. So much so that I don’t really concern myself with that. My concern is with the users and with making sure that people who are authorised to use the system do so in the safest way.” – Brian Pugsley, lead counsellor and IT manager.

We’re thrilled to hear that our software is helping such a crucial service and that the therapists love it too.

Thank you for coming to share your story Brian.

10 things to look for in a client management system for counsellors

Team Blog

For some counsellors, keeping notes from treatment sessions with their therapy clients can be a doddle. For others it’s a constant administrative challenge of managing paper records and updating various databases and other documents, and manually assessing clients’ progress. Not to mention dealing with the ever present risk of losing a highly confidential client file.

When choosing a system make sure you vet it carefully for its security credentials. Some systems are as secure as any used by the NHS and adhere rigorously to the same standards of data safety. If you’re currently using a spreadsheets package, don’t simply swap one insecure system for another.

Online client management systems can be a great way of reducing the administrative burden, helping counsellors and therapists to manage their caseloads more efficiently and keep records as safely as any NHS system.

When choosing an online client management system for counsellors, it really comes down to how you want to manage your client records and what you want a system to do for you. Read our e-book below to help you to understand what to look for in a client management system.

10 things to look for in an online client management system:

1. Recording client session notes safely and simply

2. Record client contact information

3. Ease of booking appointments

4. Self referral

5. Managing your caseload

6. Outcome measures and reporting

7. Generate correspondence

8. Tracking and managing your practice finances

9. Portability

10. Pricing

Information booklet cover

Get in touch today.

Moving to an electronic record system

Private practice, Team Blog, , , , , ,

Perhaps you’re currently using paper and pen to record client notes, and you have a cabinet full of paperwork. Though you understand the security benefits of moving to an electronic record system, and though you know that it could save you time and space, the prospect of moving your files online can be rather daunting.

Continue reading →

Working together: Service continuity for bacpac during Covid-19

Covid 19, Private practice, Support, ,

We know that private practices are facing unprecedented challenges in the light of the unfolding situation around Covid-19, and we want to reassure you that we are well prepared to support you.

Our office is responding to the recent government advice and most staff are now working from home. We are fully prepared for this eventuality and have robust and well rehearsed business continuity and contingency plans in place. Our technology and best practices enable us to provide a consistently high level of service irrespective of the location of our people or the length of time any alternative working arrangements may be required.

Similarly, we are in regular contact with our key suppliers, who have assured us of their plans and mitigations. We are confident that we can continue to provide our products and services as normal in all circumstances.

We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will update you with any changes we make to our approach in response to developments.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the bacpac team if you have any questions – we are here to support you.

See you at the BABCP annual conference

Team Blog

Next month, BABCP, the leading organisation for CBT in the UK and Ireland, will host their annual conference in our beautiful city and we’re very pleased to be participating.

The three day event will take place at the University of Bath from 3-5 September, beginning on Tuesday with a choice of 12 full-day workshops, followed by 2 packed out days featuring a wide range of skills classes, keynote talks, roundtables, panel discussions and poster presentations.

As part of this year’s conference, Mayden is sponsoring one of the full day workshops: Revolution in Mental Health Service Delivery: The Evolution of Low Intensity CBT. This is a special event for all professionals who deliver Low Intensity Psychological interventions and will celebrate the contributions of the CBT workforce over the past 10 years, with talks from a number of speakers who contribute to Low Intensity CBT, including David Clark and Paul Farrand.

The agenda focuses around important topics including therapist wellbeing, future CPD needs and progression and development within Low Intensity roles. There will also be an update on the accreditation of the Low Intensity workforce and an opportunity to meet the BABCP Low Intensity Special Interest Group committee.

In addition, we will be exhibiting both our iaptus and bacpac patient management systems at the event, and are excited to share demos and talk to you about the advantages of moving from pen and paper to a robust system that will keep your client notes safe.

Bacpac is our affordable, intuitive, and secure client management software, created for individual or a small practice counsellors and psychological therapists. It contains all the features you need to run a successful and efficient practice.

We’re excited to be offering a 30% discount on the subscription price of bacpac to those that attend.

We’ll also be showcasing iaptus – the leading patient management software for psychological therapies, built alongside our partner services in the NHS IAPT programme to support services providing high volume, low intensity therapy.

Register for your place here and tweet us to let us know when you have your ticket. We look forward to seeing you!

GDPR one year on

GDPR one year on

GDPR

In May 2018 the EU General Data Protection Regulations – or GDPR – came into force. The new regulations signalled a step change in the way that personal data could be handled. Businesses from global corporations to independent sole traders had to sit up and take notice as the GDPR were set to apply to any business, however large or small. The fines for data breaches were set to be eye wateringly high.

The introduction of the regulations was concerning for many providers of psychological therapy services as practitioners hold so much data about their clients. Lots of questions were suddenly being raised around acceptable ways to contact clients, how long data could be retained for, how data should be securely kept, and what ‘legitimate interest’ really meant for marketing activities and contact with individuals. The GDPR also signalled an increase in the administrative burden of keeping client records. This included managing individual clients’ consent to be contacted, the deletion of client data if a client requested their details to be permanently erased (the ‘right to be forgotten’), and creating a suitable consent form. Getting to grips with data security terminology presented another challenge – what was the difference between a ‘data controller’ and a ‘data processor’? It was hard to know where to start.

Here at Mayden we wanted to help our bacpac clients to navigate the GDPR. We provided a template consent form that therapists could amend for their own practice. We also produced a free eBook setting out the key aspects of the GDPR that therapists would need to be aware of and comply with to get ready for the new regulations. We had already ensured that bacpac was fully GDPR compliant so our existing users could be confident that their client data was safe and secure.

We understand how important it is that therapists comply with the GDPR. A year on from the introduction of the regulations we are keen to understand what the impact has been for therapists and our bacpac clients. We have produced a short survey to gather feedback about how challenging (or not!) the introduction of the GDPR has been. We are also keen to understand if there is anything that bacpac could do to help make compliance even easier for the benefit of you and your clients. We’d love to hear your thoughts so please do take a few moments to complete our survey. Be sure to look out for our next blog where we will be sharing the findings.

GDPR – what does it mean for you?

GDPR, Security,

There’s been a lot of coverage in the media recently about the new EU ruling on data protection – the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and as therapists and counsellors you might well be wondering what it means for you, your practice and your clients.

Well, as a therapist or counsellor, you are classified under the General Data Protection Regulation as a ‘data controller’ and there are some requirements that you will need to ensure you meet.

The rules and requirements around GDPR are complex, so we thought we’d help shed a bit of light on the subject with this short ebook.

Download GDPR ebook

If you have any questions about your role in GDPR, or how bacpac can support with the new requirements, please feel free to get in touch.

Outcome measures to reduce drop off

Team Blog

This post is one in a series of guest blogs from bacpac user, psychotherapist, coach and consultant, Barry McInnes, exploring the benefits of recording and analysing outcome measures as part of therapy. Click here to read the first part, second part and third part in the series.

 

Reason number 2 to for considering taking outcome measures with clients as part of your therapy session…

Measures might well save your (therapy) relationship

The therapeutic relationship which we prize and which figures so highly in successful outcomes is fragile and can be easily damaged.

In a revealing blog post, Tony Rousmaniere recounts how he systematically went about gathering feedback from clients about their experience of therapy with him:

“You understand me thirty percent of the time.”
“I need to you to slow down.”
“I was sad and you cut me off.”

“These words of dissatisfaction are from my clients. They weren’t easy to hear, but they have changed how I practice psychotherapy and have significantly reduced my dropout rate.”

I’m sure we’d all like to think this couldn’t possibly apply to us. On a different blog however, Scott Miller highlights studies which show that in 19-42% of sessions clients report tensions or actual breakdowns in the therapeutic relationship, figures which rise to 41-100% of sessions when trained observers are used to identify ruptures between clients and therapists.

Without measures, can we ever really know how our clients experience us in sessions? Of your last five clients that dropped out, is there anything that you could have anticipated? Anything that, had you had been aware, might have resulted in a different outcome?

Is it possible that using a short measure of how your client experiences sessions with you, like the Session Rating Scale (SRS) or the ARM-5, might help you to better understand and perhaps avoid the unexpected empty chair?

I’d welcome your thoughts and your feedback. Drop me a line by emailing barrymcinnes@virginmedia.com. You can also read more about what works in therapy from a research perspective on my website.

If you are a practising therapist in private practice and would like to contribute to the bacpac blog yourself, please get in touch using the contact form.