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Enrolling by Invitation

NCT Number: NCT07284368

Advance Choice Document Implementation

Advance Choice Documents (ACDs) are statements of preferences for mental health care and treatment made when service users have capacity to do so. This is done with their care team and others as desired, e.g. carers/supporters or advocates. In addition to improving therapeutic relationships, ACDs have been shown to reduce compulsory psychiatric admissions by 25%.

South London and Maudsley is currently implementing ACDs into routine practice across its services and the Advance Choice Document Implementation (ACDI) project, run by researchers at King's College London, is supporting the development of related resources and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation. Advisory groups will also guide the study approach throughout.

The project comprises four work packages. Work Package 1 involves focus groups with stakeholders (service users, carers, staff) to inform implementation for Older Adults and CAMHS services. This is to understand the barriers and facilitators for ACD implementation in these services; and learn what adaptations are needed to the ACD resources and procedures for use in these services

Work Package 2 is a prospective study of ACD completion and use throughout all directorates. This will comprise interviews with service users after ACD creation and after an event where the ACD is expected to have been used; interviews with their care-team during expected use events; and interviews/focus groups with staff facilitating the creation of ACDs to understand the integration of their role in SLaM.

Work Package 3 is a retrospective study examining the impact of ACD creation on health service use and routinely collected outcomes. Work Package 4 is a prospective study of ACD use and its relationship to ACD content. Work Packages 3 and 4 will use de-identified data collected via South London an Maudsley's Clinical Records Interactive search System (CRIS).

For more information on ACDI, the people involved, and related publications, please visit: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/acdi

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Key information

Age range

16 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Observational

Primary location

South London and Maudsley/Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience-King's College London

London, SE5 8AZ, United Kingdom

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

WP1: Focus Groups Service users-Young people Aged ≥ 16 Experienced detention under the MHA while in the care of CAMHS Currently under the care of community mental health services (CAMHS / EI / CMHT)

Older adults

  • Experienced detention under the MHA while under services for Older Adults
  • Currently under the care of older adult community mental health services

Carers / Informal supporters Aged ≥ 16 years A relative or friend of a service user who is eligible for the study

Professionals Professional potentially involved in supporting the completion of ACDs (i.e., community mental health team (CMHT) staff, advocates, peer workers) SLaM professionals potentially involved in referring to ACDs (i.e., inpatient and emergency department liaison mental health staff, home treatment, place of safety and street triage staff) Approved mental health professionals (AMHPs) and Section 12 (MHA) approved doctors involved in detention.

Ambulance, prison mental health and Emergency Department staff General Practitioners, including mental health leads, or other primary care professionals who care for people with SMI discharged from secondary services

WP 2: Prospective study of ACD completion and use Service users All service users: accepted referral to an ACD facilitator for ACD creation Young people

  • Aged ≥ 16
  • Experienced detention under the MHA while in the care of CAMHS
  • Currently under the care of community mental health services (CAMHS / EI / CMHT/)
  • Accepted referral to an ACD facilitator for ACD creation; including participants who decline to complete and ACD after referral to an ACD facilitator.

Older adults

  • Experienced detention under the MHA while under services for Older Adults
  • Currently under the care of older adult community mental health services
  • accepted referral to an ACD facilitator for ACD creation

General Adult:

  • Aged ≥ 18 years
  • Previously detained under the MHA
  • Under the care of community mental health services (CMHT or EI)

Forensic

  • Aged ≥ 18 years
  • Experience detention under the MHA into forensic services
  • Currently under the care of forensic mental health services

Carers: relative or friend of someone referred to an ACD facilitator

Professionals: SLaM staff involved in the care of a participant with an ACD whose ACD is expected to have been consulted because they were: involved in a transfer of care, placed in zoning, referred for a MHA assessment or to a home treatment team, attended an Emergency Department or Place of Safety, admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit or imprisoned.

The interviews conducted with service users and staff after the expected use event will also include questions about satisfaction with and perceived value of the process of completing, distributing, accessing, honouring, and reviewing an ACD.

Exclusion criteria

Service users Aged under 16 years Lacking capacity to provide consent and/or is unwilling to do so Currently detained under the MHA in psychiatric hospital Currently under the care of eating disorder services

Carers/informal supporters Aged under 16 years Is not a relative or friend of a service user who is eligible for the study

Professionals Is not a mental health professional or Section 12 (MHA) approved doctor Is not a professional involved in supporting the completion of ACDs Is not a General Practitioner or mental health lead caring for people with SMI discharged from secondary services.

Treatment and study plan

Advance Choice Document Implementation

Other

Creation and application of Advance Choice Documents

Primary outcomes

  1. Number of admissions under the Mental Health Act sections 2, 3, 135 and and associated bed days

    Time frame: 18 months

    Mental Health Act sections Section 2, 3, 135 and 136 are a means to detain someone in a psychiatric facility, in England and Wales.

    Evaluation will be done over different follow-up periods and include participants admitted under all Sections of the Mental Health Act and associated bed-days, compared to number of participants admitted voluntarily (non-Mental Health Act) and associated bed-days.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Number of Home Treatment Team events

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of Home Treatment Team events and days spent under the care of Home Treatment Teams will be assessed for participants with advance choice documents and those without advance choice documents

  2. Number of events of acute mental health and emergency service use

    Time frame: 18

    The number of events use of acute mental health and emergency services will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents

  3. Rates of restraint

    Time frame: 18

    The number of events where restraint is used will be evaluated for participants advance choice documents compared to participants without advance choice documents, across each follow-up period. As these events are not recorded in structured fields, free-text entries will be searched to identify all events containing the words: Restrained' and/or 'restraint'

  4. Number of days spent in seclusion

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of days spent in seclusion will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents. As these events are not recorded in structured fields, free-text entries will be searched to identify all events containing the words 'Seclusion' and 'supervised confinement'

  5. Number of events of involuntary medication

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of events where involuntary medication is used will be evaluated for participants advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents

  6. Number of safety events recorded (violence, self-harm, consequences of self-neglect and other serious untoward incidents)

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of safety events recorded will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents

  7. Number of events of contact with police related to use of mental health services

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of events of contact with police related to use of mental health services will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents

  8. Number of events of General health service use

    Time frame: 18 months

    General health service use will be measured through data linkage with Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). These data will be obtained at a national level for all service users. Physical health service use outcomes will include: inpatient admissions and associated bed days (this will include Healthcare Resource Group codes, associated primary and secondary diagnostic codes, admission category, and treatment specialty code), Emergency Department (ED) attendances (this will include Healthcare Resource Group codes, diagnosis classifications, investigations codes, treatment codes, arrival mode, and attendance disposal codes), and outpatient appointments (this will include appointment information such as first appointment. We will extract routinely collected outcomes such as the Health of the Nations Outcomes Scales (HoNOS)

  9. Number of community mental health team events

    Time frame: 18 months

    Number of community mental health team events will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents compared to those without advance choice documents.

  10. Number of psychiatric liaison team events (in emergency departments)

    Time frame: 18 months

    The number of psychiatric liaison team events will be evaluated for participants with advance choice documents and those without. The number of events will be requested for all follow-up periods within 18 months. (ie participants will have varying follow-up periods)

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

King's College London

Other

Collaborators

  • South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Registry information

Acronym: ACDI

Important dates

Study start
2025
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2027
First posted
Dec 16, 2025
Registry last updated
Dec 16, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.