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Te 10 Essential Shared Capabilities: What are they
and what canthey achieve?Introduction
This is an introduction to the revised Essential Shared
Capabilities (ESC) (2009) Learning Materials,
sponsored by the NIMHE National Workorce Programme. The original
ESC learning materials were published in 2005 and since that time
have
had a great inuence on a range o other approaches to training
and development in mental health.
The original materials utilised emerging interest in Values
Based Practice or engaging reection, practice improvement and
change in the
mental health workorce. This approach has resonated across other
workstreams and across countries.
There is a growing tend in national health and social care
policy to reect the issues o
personalisation in care delivery. The theme ocuses on a
requirement to retune practice and services back to the core values
which are the
cornerstone o high quality practice.
The ESC describes a set o values and behaviours that
characterise the oundation or high quality mental health care.
These characteristics
were arrived at ollowing a major consultation exercise with
Service Users and Carers conducted by the Sainsbury Centre or
Mental Health in
England (see box 1).
The ESC require us to examine the oundations o our practice to
ensure that this practice is being well supported and
maintained. Societal changes in the public expectation o
healthcare services would indicate that the ground is shiting and
we collectively
need to expose our oundations to some examination in order to
reassure ourselves and others that the
structural validity o our practice is intact.
Initial and cursory reading o the 10 ESC descriptors can be
deceptive. There appears little to be debated or contested in these
requirements orgood quality health care. Our national work in
promoting the ESC has provided a unique insight to the complexity
contained within a set o 10
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seemingly simple statements or care delivery. We believe the ESC
provide a useul instrument to help mental health workers describe
and
reect meaningully on their work (in all its complexity). The ESC
are a oundation o practice expectation rom a service user
perspective
and thereore have utility when we think about the practical
oundation or development o education and training.
The Ten ESC are important because, sel evidently, or Service
Users and carers they are essential components o a close,
collaborative relationship built on mutual trust, respect and
ethical practice. In simple terms the ESC can be viewed as a set o
values with
associated behaviours that mental health personnel hold and
display in all interactions.
Box 1. The Ten Essential Shared Capabilities
1. Working in Partnership: Developing and maintaining
constructive working relationships with service users, carers,
amilies, colleagues, lay peo-
ple and wider community networks. Working positively with any
tensions created by conicts o interest or aspiration that may arise
between the partners
in care.
2. Respecting Diversity: Working in partnership with service
users, carers, amilies and colleagues to provide care and
interventions that not only
make a positive diference but also do so in ways that respect
and value diversity including age, race, culture, disability,
gender, spirituality and sexuality.
3. Practising Ethically: Recognising the rights and aspirations
o service users and their amilies, acknowledging power diferentials
and minimis-
ing them whenever possible. Providing treatment and care that is
accountable to service users and carers within the boundaries
prescribed by national
(proessional), legal and local codes o ethical practice.
4. Challenging Inequality: Addressing the causes and
consequences o stigma, discrimination, social inequality and
exclusion on service users, car-
ers and mental health services. Creating, developing or
maintaining valued social roles or people in the communities they
come rom.
