3 ways to make your mental health care plan templates align with NICE (and actually get used)

Written By Alex Osman

Care plans should be usable first, compliant always. When templates fight the way teams work, quality varies and people work around them. The good news: small design tweaks fix most of it. NICE consistently emphasises person-centred planning, shared decision-making, clear reviewable goals, and proportionate risk management.

Here are three practical redesign moves with prompt lists you can drop straight into your template guidance.

1) Design for a person‑centred plan (not just a record)

NICE expects people to be active participants in planning and decisions, with family/carers involved where appropriate. Build your template to ask for, and display, what matters to the person, up front and in plain language.

Prompts to embed:

  • What are the person’s strengths, interests, and values?

  • What does a good day look like?

  • Goals, hopes, and aspirations (in the person’s words).

  • Who should be involved in care planning (family, carers, advocates)?

  • Communication preferences and decision‑making supports (capacity, reasonable adjustments).

Template tweaks that help:

  • "In the person's words" (1-3 sentences) at the very top

  • Make involvement a named, mandatory field 😊(not just a tick-box🙁): who was involved and how

  • WCAG-aware layout and a readability check, so the person can understand and own the plan.

2) Make risk assessment & management visible, specific, and proportionate

NICE stresses structured assessment with risk formulation, protective factors, and clear contingency steps, especially around self‑harm and safety. Guide teams to link risks with actions, owners, and review dates without turning the whole plan into a risk log.

Prompts to include:

  • Current or historical risks (e.g. self‑harm, neglect, exploitation; medication side effects).

  • Protective factors and supports already working.

  • Strategies to manage identified risks (how, where, when).

  • Who monitors what, and how often it's reviewed.

  • Contingency plan if risks escalate (who to contact; immediate steps).

Template tweaks that help:

  • A compact "risk strip": Risk | Protective factor | Plan | Owner | Review date.

3) Require clear, measurable goals with matching interventions

Plans should set specific objectives, practical interventions, and review points so progress can be seen and adapted. That’s the backbone of quality improvement and audit.

Prompts to include:

  • Short‑term and long‑term goals.

  • Specific actions/interventions for each goal

  • Named owner for each action (role/name)

  • Timeframe for review/completion.

  • How progress will be measured (what data, how often, by whom).

Template tweaks that help:

  • A simple goal table: Goal | Intervention | Owner | Target date | Progress notes.

What this means for template design

  • Move person‑centered context to the top; use it as the anchor for everything else

  • Keep risk to a small, structured panel that links directly to actions and reviews

  • Make goals + interventions the working heart of the plan, with built-in review dates by default

Not sure where to start with updating your organisation’s care‑plan templates? Message to book a 15‑minute call. Let's explore how Mellow Consultancy can help.

About Mellow Consultancy

We help organisations redesign Mental Health care plan templates so they’re clearer, faster to complete, and compliant with professional and regulator standards.

#NHS #CommunityMentalHealth #QualityImprovement #InformationGovernance #ClinicalDocumentation

Alex Osman