Terms beginning with O P and R

• Outcome
• Personalisation
• Patient Advocacy and Liaison Service (PALS)
• Primary care
• Positive symptoms
• Prodromal symptoms
• Provider
• Psychological treatment
• Randomised controlled trial
• Responsible Clinician

Outcome

An ‘outcome’ is a result. Mental health professionals and researchers talk about outcomes when they describe what happens to people’s health and quality or life after treatment or therapy, for example, or what happens to people’s health and quality of life if they do not have a particular treatment. A ‘long-term’ outcome is what happens to people’s health and quality of life over a number of years. When people carry out research projects, they measure outcomes to see if a particular treatment or package of support is effective. One outcome they might measure would be the number of relapses people have. Another might be the number of times people are admitted to hospital.

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Personalisation

‘Personalisation’ describes a government plan to reform public services and give people the chance to live their own lives in the way they want to. Direct Payments and Individual Budgets are part of personalisation policies and there are links to find out more about them on this page. Direct Payments and Individual Budgets can make it easier for people to make their own decisions about the sort of support they receive, rather than be dependent recipients of care.

‘Personalised care planning’ also comes under the umbrella of ‘Personalisation’ and aims to give people with long-term conditions more control over treatments and services, and put people on more of an equal footing with health and social care professionals.

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Patient Advocacy and Liaison Service (PALS)

All NHS have a Patient Advice and Liaison Service. Their role is to provide support, advice and information to patients and their families. They can also tell you how to complain about a service, and explain the Trust’s complaints procedures. You can find out more by visiting the PALS website or by visiting the individual NHS Trust website and searching for PALS.

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Primary care

The NHS has ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ services. Primary care services are your first point of contact with the NHS: your GP, your dentist, your optician, for example. NHS walk-in centres, and the NHS Directory phone service are also primary care services.

These services are managed by organisations called NHS ‘Primary Care Trusts’ – you may see them described as ‘PCTs’, though ‘PCT’ is no longer in their title. They are now just called ‘NHS’ followed by the name of the area they cover – NHS Southwark, for example. 

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Positive symptoms

People who have schizophrenia experience what health professionals describe as ‘positive symptoms’ – delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking – during episodes of psychosis.

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Prodromal symptoms

However, a first episode of psychosis is often heralded by what health professionals call a ‘prodromal period’ when people’s behaviour begins to change.

People are often depressed or anxious, may find it difficult to concentrate or have problems remembering things, stop seeing their friends, act in a strange and uncharacteristic way, be less interested in study, work or hobbies and care less about how they look. They may become socially withdrawn and spend much more time alone.

They also sometimes have experiences resembling the symptoms of psychosis – hearing voices every now and then, being occasionally suspicious and paranoid for example. Research has shown that up to half the people who have these sort of experiences go on to have a first episode of psychosis.

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Provider

A ‘provider’ is any organisation that provides care and support. Primary care trusts decide what health services people living within their boundaries need and are responsible for providing health services directly or for paying other organisations to provide them. These can be other NHS Trusts or voluntary or private organisations.

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Psychological treatment

Some mental health treatment consists of ‘talking therapies’. Individuals or family members are seen by a therapist who discusses their experiences and how they feel.

Some psychological treatments, like cognitive behaviour therapy, focus on the links between feelings, thoughts and behaviour. Some, such as family therapy (also called family intervention), focus on how families solve problems together and cope with problems. Some, such as cognitive remediation therapy, focus on working with a computer to improve memory and attention.

Psychological therapists who work with people with psychosis are usually called clinical or counseling psychologists. They mainly work in the NHS, and since 2009, have been required to be registered with the Health Professions Council.

Psychological treatment is sometimes called psychological ‘intervention’.

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Randomised controlled trial

A randomised controlled trial or RCT is a type of research project used mostly to test how effective treatments or services are. People who take part in a RCT are randomly chosen to have different treatments or services so researchers can compare the effectiveness of each. The random selection means the results are not biased. Many researchers think that the evidence from a properly conducted and randomised trial provides the clearest answer about which treatments work best. Guidance from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence is based on evidence from randomised controlled trials for this reason.

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Responsible Clinician

The Responsible Clinician is what the Mental Health Act calls the senior professional in charge of someone’s care when they are detained in hospital for assessment or treatment.