Training healthcare assistants working in adult acute inpatient wards in Psychological First Aid: an implementation and evaluation study.

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare assistants working within adult acute inpatient psychiatric settings are untrained and unregistered, however they can contribute to quality service if they receive some training. Psychological First Aid training has never been expended in these settings, so this study intends to fill this gap in the existing evidence with this category of healthcare personnel. AIM: The aim of this study was to introduce and evaluate first aid training for healthcare assistants. METHOD: A pre/post design was adopted to gather data using questionnaires and interviews. The groups of participants included 16 healthcare assistants trained in Psychological First Aid, a sample of service users and four ward managers. RESULTS: Post-training, i) healthcare assistants and service users ranked the therapeutic milieu of the ward more favourably, ii) the self-efficacy of the healthcare assistants increased, and the number of 'untoward' incidents decreased, and iii) health care assistants' confidence in their skills was high. The ward manager interviews post-training revealed four themes: i) staff utilisation of new skills and renewed enthusiasm, ii) calmer atmosphere on the ward and staff togetherness, iii) confidence and reflection on practice and iv) therapeutic engagement. DISCUSSION: Training healthcare assistants is useful in improving staff confidence, therapeutic engagement with service users and ward culture in general. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Techniques and skills learnt are relevant and useful to healthcare assistants and provide an easily understood toolkit that is harmonious with nursing values. If executed correctly, the training can enhance practice and care outcomes and the overall service user experience. RELEVANCE STATEMENT: This article describes a training programme for healthcare assistants working in adult acute inpatient psychiatric settings and its evaluation from the perspective of i) the ward manager, ii) the healthcare assistant and iii) the service user. The programme yielded positive results and it appears that skills learnt are harmonious to nursing values. If executed correctly, the training can enhance practice and care outcomes as well as the overall service user experience across the National Health Service (NHS).