Security, Privacy, and Dignity
Access control system aids smooth running
Jerry Smith, director of hardware specialist, Primera Life, describes how, working with a specialist locksmith, the company helped a Bradford mental healthcare Trust address problems with existing ‘conventional’ locks in a low secure unit. Failing locks were leaving rooms unusable or insecure, and stopping male patients entering and exiting their single rooms without taking up considerable staff time – an issue resolved via an innovative proximity access control system.
There will always be mental health issues. Equally, whatever we learn, and however advanced our understanding becomes, there will always be room for improvement in the design of some elements of mental healthcare accommodation to provide service-users with the best possible environment in which to receive treatment and care. Fortunately, we are a determined species, with some remarkable, caring, and compassionate individuals. Even if perfection is not possible, improvements are being made all the time to treatment, understanding, and outcomes. We only have to take a look back a few decades into the provision of mental healthcare to see just how far we have already come.
OVERCOMING BARRIERS Making progress is about refusing to accept that things cannot get better, even in the face of difficulties and financial constraints. Sometimes advances are significant, and sometimes they are tiny, but every one contributes. The efforts of the Design in Mental Health Network are an example of the positive effects of collaboration. Professionals from nursing, education, architecture, facilities management, and industry, are working together to enhance the experience of people with mental health issues by improving the built environment – and that is important, because improved experiences make faster recovery possible. In 2003, Lawson and Phiri from the University of Sheffield1 identified improved recovery times and a 14% reduction in inpatient stays when healthcare facilities were sympathetically designed.
SAFE, NON-INSTITUTIONAL, AND ATTRACTIVE This is an issue that UK-based hardware specialist, Primera Life, is passionate about. Our products – window and door hardware, and other fixtures – have been developed to be safe but also to be attractive, and to avoid,
30 THE NETWORK April 2015
wherever possible, an ‘institutional’ appearance. The range includes a number of locking systems to suit mental healthcare units with particular security needs. One of these systems, PassPort, is helping the Bradford District Care Trust to protect the human rights of its patients. The Human Rights Act of 1988 asserts a
basic right to privacy, dignity, and confidentiality. In low-secure establishments it is preferable to allow residents a degree of control over their own environment. Many facilities have single occupancy rooms, but to provide a real sense of privacy, and to ensure security for residents’ possessions, those rooms need reliable and safe locking systems.
PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LOCKS Bradford District Care Trust had a problem at its Moorlands View Unit, a forensic low secure facility which accommodates men with mental health issues. Within the low-security unit are the Ilkley and Thornton wards. These are designed for inpatient care, and offer lockable, single rooms to residents. However, there were practical difficulties with locking which were interfering with the wards’ smooth running – the existing locks had been installed for some time, but a number were failing due to wear and tear. Others were broken and needed replacing. Spares and replacements were available, but only on long lead times, and at considerable cost, leaving rooms either unusable or insecure. With both original locks and their replacements, clinical staff were spending time that would have been better deployed providing practical care searching for the right key just to allow residents access to their own room.
Primera Life director, Jerry Smith: “The question remains, however, if something claims to be ‘anti-ligature’, how do you know exactly how safe or effective it is?”
Consequently, patients couldn’t come and go from their rooms to communal areas without causing work for staff, and extra pressure on the staff meant added running costs and stress. Managing the unit was becoming increasingly complex.
SOLUTION SOUGHT, AND FOUND With the problems mounting, the estates manager at the Bradford District Care Trust, Luke Reid, decided to seek a solution, and approached Leeds-based MB Locking Logistic Group, a business with extensive experience in providing specialist architectural hardware for the healthcare sector. Partnering with Primera, the team from MB visited the Moorlands View unit to look at possible solutions. Primera and MB undertook a thorough survey of the wards, and suggested installing
‘Making progress is about refusing to accept that things cannot get better, even in the face of difficulties and financial constraints’
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