Achieving transparency in forensic risk assessment: a multimodal approach

Abstract

SUMMARY The Department of Health’s best practice guidelines on risk management and violence prevention in UK mental health services highlight the importance of transparency and collaboration with service users. The recovery philosophy echoes the importance of service user inclusion and empowerment in treatment. Our experience in a medium and low secure hospital was that patients were largely excluded from the risk assessment process. In this article, we describe a model for achieving inclusion and transparency in the use of risk assessment tools based on structured professional judgement.