Standards Development
Joint standards development progressing
Chris Hall, health sector lead at independent research-based consultancy, testing, and training organisation, for the built environment, BRE, discusses how BRE and DIMHN propose to work together over the next two years to develop standards for products used in mental healthcare settings to help ensure that such environments are safe, supportive, user-friendly, and therapeutic.
Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN) members have, for some time, highlighted a lack of consensus on guidance and standards covering products and design features for mental healthcare buildings. Often, as things stand, the NHS requires providers to test each product against their own criteria before use. This results in an inconsistent approach to specification and performance, leading to less- than-ideal care environments, and perhaps even, in extreme cases, self-harm and death. The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness highlights that there are several suicides as a result of hanging on inpatient wards. The cost of unnecessary multiple product assessments and litigation runs into millions of pounds per year.
In a multi-faceted drive for better building design, design teams are challenged to
minimise ligature points, while at the same time providing higher quality environments, Nationally agreed guidance and standards would help to improve product performance, and reduce the need for multiple testing, leading to safer environments and lower costs, a ‘win-win’ outcome. DIMHN, which champions the involvement
of service-users, carers, and staff, in improving design, came to BRE (Building Research Establishment) to explore collaboration on the development of standards that would bring together DIMHN’s aspirations of creating safe, supportive, and therapeutic environments, and the BRE’s independent testing and building design expertise.
A COMPREHENSIVE ‘PACKAGE’ To ensure a ‘total package’ of effective standards that offer the maximum benefit to all
A resilience test on a security grille being undertaken at the BRE using hand tools.
end-users – service-users and staff – we expect the product standards developed to cover anti- ligature alongside a range of other issues, including ease of use, maintenance, security, level of protection, acoustic performance, sustainability, and mental health-specific impacts. The outcomes must be user-friendly, encouraging best practice and innovation, rather than just meeting minimum quality standards. Joe Forster, President of DIMHN, said: “Manufacturers, suppliers, and contractors, are faced with a bewildering array of conflicting requirements that their designs have to meet, with a similar picture for estates and facilities professionals. This collaboration will give us a shared understanding of the product attributes that work in everyone’s interests – including service-users, their families, and staff – enabling us to develop a platform for innovation and improvement.”
ABOUT BRE AND STANDARDS BRE was created by Government in 1921 with a remit to improve the performance of homes
An aerial photograph of the BRE’s substantial Watford site. Facilities include Europe’s largest fire testing facility; a structural test hall capable of accommodating a four-storey building, and IT testing facilities that measure the performance and durability of electronic components in security systems.
‘Manufacturers, suppliers, and contractors, are faced with a bewildering array of conflicting requirements that their designs have to meet, with a similar picture for estates and facilities professionals’
THE NETWORK April 2015 17
Photograph courtesy of BRE.
Photograph courtesy of BRE.
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