Within mental health legislation in England and Wales the Responsible Clinician for specific patients should be the Approved Clinician with the most appropriate expertise to meet their primary assessment and treatment needs. The study aimed to explore nurse and psychologist perspectives on becoming a Responsible Clinician in the context of their limited uptake of the role and calls for an increase in advanced practice roles within mental health. It comprised a qualitative inquiry in the form of a thematic analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews. Four sub-themes emerged under the theme of ‘becoming a Responsible Clinician’. They were: (i) the Responsible Clinician amongst other roles; (ii) developing in the role; (iii) working with psychiatrist colleagues; and (iv) organisational context. Responsible Clinicians were juggling the role with other senior clinical responsibilities, often without a coherent programme of ongoing educational development or organisational support structures. If mental health service provider organisations adopt this extended role more widely then role-specific support and supervision arrangements should be in place as part of a coherent workforce strategy. This is particularly important given the legal and ethical responsibilities of the Responsible Clinician.

在英格兰和威尔士的精神卫生立法中，特定患者的负责临床医生应该是具有最合适专业知识的批准临床医生，以满足他们的主要评估和治疗需求。该研究旨在探索护士和心理学家在他们对这一角色的理解有限的情况下成为一名负责任的临床医生的观点，并呼吁增加心理健康领域的高级实践角色。它包括对 12 次半结构化访谈进行主题分析的定性调查。在“成为负责任的临床医生”的主题下出现了四个子主题。他们是： (i) 除其他角色外，负责任的临床医生；(ii) 角色发展；(iii) 与精神科医生同事合作；(iv) 组织环境。负责任的临床医生在扮演其他高级临床职责的同时，往往没有一个连贯的持续教育发展计划或组织支持结构。如果精神卫生服务提供者组织更广泛地采用这种扩展角色，则应制定特定角色的支持和监督安排，作为连贯的劳动力战略的一部分。鉴于负责任的临床医生的法律和道德责任，这一点尤为重要。