1. Embedding Making Every Contact Count in Nursing and Midwifery
Crosland, A., Ling, J., McCabe, K., Wallace, A., Wilson, K.  
Background
Making Every Contact Count (MECC), a tool for providing evidence-based brief advice, interventions or signposting, encourages all staff in public sector organisations to consider how all contacts with service users could improve health and wellbeing.
Aim
The study explores how, following a programme of skill development, staff in Foundation Trusts are prepared to offer brief advice, brief interventions or signposting to patients and what is required within organisations to allow this to happen.
Methods
Senior staff in two Foundation Trusts identified current priorities and opportunities for implementing MECC and to identify how best to achieve this and with whom. A staff training programme was developed with two levels of training: low intensity, focussing on signposting and high intensity which used brief interventions.
Evaluation involved interviews with senior staff, structured questionnaires for staff at the end of each training session and one month later and interviews with five staff per participating Foundation Trust to explore barriers and facilitators to using MECC.
Low Intensity:
Brief advice and signposting
2 hours
All participants
High Intensity:
Brief Intervention
2 day, accredited course
15 participants per organisation
Results
Engagement differed between departments but where senior support existed the intervention was well received with recognition that MECC had a place within Trusts.
Senior staff considered MECC gave legitimacy to nurses and midwives to talk about public health.
Staff identified a need for low intensity sessions to contextualise MECC and training on opening and closing healthy conversations before high intensity training in brief interventions.
MECC was easier to implement where it fitted with existing priorities, without this it was difficult to justify the time involved.
Conclusions
Successful implementation of evidence-based interventions within organisations requires both engagement of staff at all levels and suitable skill and knowledge development, especially contextual information on how MECC aligns with local and national priorities. Staff at all levels recognised the value of such interventions but adoption was dependent on the model and the context in which it was used. While public health is typically not seen as part of the role in secondary care, MECC provides a significant opportunity for staff to instigate health improvement conversations with patients.
The National Institute for Health Research’s School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR) is a partnership between the Universities of Sheffield, Bristol, Cambridge, UCL; The London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry; the LiLaC collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool and Lancaster and Fuse; The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, a collaboration between Newcastle, Durham, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside Universities.
This is an outline of independent research funded by the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the AHSN, NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.
School for Public Health Research