Introduction

Multiprofessional working is essential within health care environments. Successive legislation in the UK (Department of Health and Social Security 1977; Department of Health 1990, 1999, 2000, 2001) and, more significantly for the purposes of this book, the National Minimum Standards for Psychiatric Intensive Care (Department of Health 2002) have attempted to outline methods of both implementing and positively running these interactions. Despite this, the development of high-quality and well functioning teams remains a continuing goal.

This chapter outlines the developmental history of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) principle within the UK, discusses some potential problems, elaborates on what makes a successful team and why working within a truly MDT is beneficial within a Psychiatric Intensive Care/Low Secure Unit (PICU/LSU). It also describes roles within the team and finally how teams can remain effective.

Definition of a multidisciplinary team

Mohrman et al. (1995) define a team as, ‘a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable. Team members share goals and are mutually held accountable for meeting them, they are interdependent in their accomplishment, and they affect the results through their interactions with one another. Because the team is held collectively accountable, the work of integrating with one another is included among the responsibilities of each member’.

There is no one definition of an MDT and formal definitions in the wider literature do not accurately describe those recognised as mental health teams.