Implementation of the Key Components of CAPA
(Kingsbury and York, 2007)
In November 2007 we contacted services known to us and put a request out on an international discussion forum (FOCUS Mailbase; focus@cru.rcpsych.ac.uk) through an online questionnaire. We asked for general information about their services, whether or not they had implemented CAPA and the impact. We asked for ratings on items 2 to 11 of the 11 Key Components of CAPA i.e. omitted Item 1: Management and Leadership (we hadn’t highlighted this item then).
What we found out
113 people responded. Of these, 15 were managers (13%). 40 said they had implemented CAPA. On average, CAPA had been in place for 8 months. Teams received on average 47 referrals per FTE per year: 50% were in the range 57 to 33 FTE.
Waits to first appointment:
CAPA services
Average waits before CAPA: 20 weeks After CAPA: 73% had waits to Choice of 6 weeks or less
Non-CAPA services
Wait to first appointment on average 12 weeks. Only 33% had waits of 6 weeks or less
CAPA compliance and average waits to Choice:
So we found that implementing CAPA had a significant effect on reducing waits. A score of 7 or more on the 10-item scale seemed to be correlated with successful impact in terms of waits.
| CAPA Component | Implementing CAPA (% fully compliant) |
Not implemented CAPA (% fully compliant) |
| Language | 77 | 10 |
| Fully Booked to Choice | 85 | 26 |
| Choice Framework | 92 | 31 |
| Fully Booked to Partnership | 77 | 3 |
| Selecting Clinician by Skill | 77 | 23 |
| Extended Core Skills | 71 | 44 |
| Goal Setting | 51 | 48 |
| Job Planning | 69 | 37 |
| Small Group Supervision | 67 | 55 |
| Team Away Days | 53 | 44 |
| Waiting time to Choice = 6 weeks or less | 73 | 33 |
| Average score out 10 components | 7.1 | 2.5 |
Some comments
It seems to us that some of the given answers can only be made sense of if we assume the question wasn't quite understood!
For example - we have never come across a team that is doing small group - peer group supervision , let alone 55% in non-CAPA teams. We also doubt the team away days being at least four times a year as that seems very rare in out experience.
Finally we know clinicians have goals for the work with the family but we think clear and jointly agreed goals, which are written down (perhaps using the CORC methodology) are also not very common.