Mental Health Reviews or Independent Investigations

About this section

In this section you can read about Independent Investigations, which are sometimes known as Mental Health Reviews.

You can find out what an Independent Investigation is, and how AAFDA can help.

If you have been told that an Independent Investigation is to take place and you would like to talk to us, you can call or email using the links at the top of this page.

What is an Independent Investigation/Mental Health Review?

An independent investigation, sometimes known as a Mental Health Review, will focus on the care and treatment of an individual who had been receiving NHS treatment from a local NHS Trust.

The review is established under the NHS Serious Incident Framework and the Department of Health Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the investigation of serious incidents in mental health services.

The purpose of an Independent Investigation is to thoroughly review the care and treatment received by the service user in order to establish if there are any lessons to be learnt. This is done to minimise the possibility of a reoccurrence of similar events, and to make recommendations for the delivery of health services in the future.

The investigation is internal to the NHS, a report will be produced and this may be published, and the NHS will act on any recommendations made by the investigation. An independent organisation external to the NHS is commissioned to undertake this.

You can read more about Independent Investigations from the NHS England website

How we can help?

AAFDA helps families with Independent Investigations/Mental Health Reviews in a similar way to how it helps families with Domestic Homicide Reviews. Health Trusts may also conduct internal reviews.

We are seeing the merging of Mental Health and Domestic Homicide Reviews in many instances and this can be quite complex for families. There may be two different types of statutory guidance governing the reviews and two different authorities (Health Trust and the Community Safer Partnership) jointly commisioning the review. We can help with this.

If you have lost a member of your family or a friend through fatal domestic abuse, we are here to help

Our normal office hours are 9:00am - 5:00pm but we may be able to take calls outside of these hours. If we are not available, please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.