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Product design


pursuing a safe solution, which has now passed our staff attack testing, and allows staff to easily intervene and remove the door from an aggressive service-user.”


TESTING TIMES Once customer research and concept development are underway, the team moves into the prototype and testing phase. Using methodical, customer-focused prototyping, they tested numerous materials, leaf options, and hinging systems for the en-suite door. Each was assessed by our in-house engineers and external stakeholders who would be using the product on a day-to-day basis. For example, NHS Tayside, which was heavily involved with the development, visited the Safehinge Primera design workshop several times, and its feedback was crucial to the final design. Carol Stewart, Healthcare manager at Murray Royal Hospital (NHS Tayside) in Perth, said: “We were impressed by how thorough the product development process was, from the initial prototypes through to the final concept prototype.” Safehinge Primera worked closely with the health board’s Violence and Aggression Management Adviser to understand typical means of attack and concerns from clinical staff. “Indeed we might speak to stakeholders every month during the development of a new product,” explains Philip Ross. “The challenge with this process is how to create something that performs well, and balances all the different needs.” The product is then tested ‘in house’, using various methods in line with healthcare design guidance, but also real-life scenarios specific to the product we have developed with customers. Tests include kicking and jumping on the frame mounts to ensure they do not come loose or break. We also used the mallet test from the Department of Health’s Environmental Design Guide – Adult Medium Secure Services. Philip Ross says: “This was so severe that we think it is tougher than a real life scenario – with more force than you could achieve with a kick.”


‘WEAPONISATION’ TESTS


As a company we also adopt a range of ligature tests, ensuring that we use different materials to account for the impact of friction on ligatures; for example, the higher-friction rubber ear phone cables compared to a fabric cord. Alongside all of this, we carry out ‘weaponisation’ tests. Gus Thomas explains: “We used pillars in the office initially, and, as the design progressed, we became more confident testing on each other. This hugely-in-depth process highlights any remaining problems, and makes the final product more suitable to take to market.”


Philip Ross adds: “We always consider how


our products will be used in real life. For example, clinicians and estates teams told us our en-suite door had to be able to be retrofitted quickly to existing openings – minimising the need to decant service-users and thus disrupt their recovery. This was a key consideration during the design process.”


PRIORITISATION Gus Thomas adds: “From our research and testing we realised the challenge was not just to remove obvious ligature points, but also ones


The Symphony en-suite doorset won the Product Innovation Award at the 2017 Design in Mental Health Awards, and attracted plenty of interest on Safehinge Primera’s exhibition stand.


With two hard surfaces, simply wedging a shoe, a towel, or a knotted bedsheet, quickly overcomes the ‘safety’ feature of a gap between them.


The team developed flexible rubber doors to eliminate the two hard surfaces. However, stabbing the rubber door leaf with a biro created a makeshift ligature point ‘in a matter of seconds’.


Safehinge Primera’s design team learned from early prototypes that soft materials can be picked at or manipulated using everyday tools to create ligature points.


that can also be created using common items, such as a shoe being wedged. A large number of mental health organisations we were developing the product with viewed the en-suite door as one of the highest-risk doors, with a significant urgency to deliver a safe alternative to current designs.” This focus on ligature risk came as evidence


shows there has been an increase in the number of self-harm and hanging incidents involving en- suite doors. This is believed to be partly due to product designs in other parts of the room


being improved to enhance safety and remove more traditional ligature points, leaving the en-suite door, which has changed very little up to now, as a last resort for patients intent on self-harm. As one safety officer fed back to us: ‘For every ligature risk you eliminate, the risk simply moves to a different area – which then needs to be eliminated in turn.’


CALL FOR A ‘LOCK-OFF’ FUNCTION Part of our early customer research also called for a lock-off function on the en-suite door. Gus Thomas explains: “Prioritisation forms a natural part of our design process. Due to the increase in suicide attempts using en-suite doors, we decided to pause development of a lock-off door feature so that we could bring an anti- ligature product to market as soon as possible.” Philip Ross adds: “En-suite doors are one of the known big safety risks remaining in mental health, and companies have been trying to address the problem for a long period of time. Doors, in general, are a major part of mental health environments. They play a significant role, and are one of the mobile parts of a building that staff and patients are regularly interacting with, in a way they would not with other fixtures, such as light fittings or shower controls, which do not move in the same way. “Bedroom doors have a number of purposes


– they create a fire barrier, keeping building occupants safe; they have acoustic properties, keeping noise in or out; they enable privacy, but


THE NETWORK JANUARY 2018 25


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