NEWS


Art’s therapeutic impact examined


Visitors to a new event held at the Royal College of Physicians in London last month were asked to consider art’s role in improving the healthcare environment. Yorkshire-based artist Dan Savage – who has provided a variety of artwork for recent mental healthcare projects including the new £50 m Hopewood Park mental healthcare facility in Ryhope, the Roker & Mowbray Dementia Centre in Sunderland, and the Ferndene Young People’s (CAMHS) Unit in Prudhoe, hosted an exhibition at the European Healthcare Design 2015 Congress & Exhibition on 22-23 June. Using a combination of poster- based information and images of both his own and others’ artworks at the event – which was organised by Architects for Health and SALUS Global Knowledge Exchange – he presented his findings from research into academic papers on the subject, and offered recommendations on


how art ‘can reduce anxiety, stress, and even pain’.


He said: “I believe blank walls in hospitals foster negative thoughts. Often the only adornments are confusing signs and posters about diseases. When I was 20, I was treated in hospital for testicular cancer, and I remember my own feelings ranged from fear and uncertainty, to boredom and gloominess, alongside the obvious physical manifestations of my condition. “Creating art specifically for healthcare environments is an exciting area for development, combining the artist’s creative and imaginative skills with academic research studies, to create accessible art that can play a big role in the treatment pathway.” Dan Savage’s projects to date have included the creation of glass panels, signage, seating, and wall-based artwork. Following his exhibition at European Healthcare Design 2015, further information on his recommendations will be available via a series of forthcoming ‘blogs’ on his website, (www.artstop.co.uk). An award- winning artist working in the healthcare and public sectors in the UK, he added: “In each project, I collaborate extensively with service- users, client teams, and architects, to provide artwork that is accessible, calming, and in harmony with the architectural design.”


National organisations’ ‘priority’ call Six leading mental health organisations


recently joined forces to produce ‘a plan of action’ for the Government in the first 100 days of the new Parliament to help improve the lives of people with mental health problems. Improving England’s Mental Health: The


First 100 Days and Beyond (accessible at http://tinyurl.com/pucqpkk), was produced jointly by Centre for Mental Health, the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Network, Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and sets out practical actions for the new Government ‘to ensure that mental and physical health are valued equally’. The organisations maintain that during the last Parliament, funding for mental health services was cut, in real terms, by 8.25% – almost £600 m, while just 25% of adults with depression and anxiety get any treatment. Speaking jointly, the organisations said:


“The Queen’s Speech set out the Government’s intention to improve access to mental health services over the next five years. This is very much welcome. Our plan sets out a range of actions needed to make that happen.” Five key priority areas identified are:


6 THE NETWORK J u l y 2 0 1 5


Best-in-class doorset collaboration


At May’s Design in Mental Health 2015 show Safehinge launched its new Symphony doorset ‘package’ – ‘a fully coordinated door safety system for mental health and dementia care’. To create a fully compliant,


comprehensive doorset ‘package’, Safehinge says it ‘quickly recognised that a partnership with experts was needed’. It thus worked with other manufacturers, such as Primera, Vistamatic, DORMA, and Lorient, ‘to create a a co-ordinated kit of parts that is anti- ligature, anti-barricade, and robust enough to survive user abuse’.


Symphony Doorsets include pre-specified doors and ironmongery specifications for mental health and dementia bedrooms and corridor doors. The company said: “Each component was carefully selected based on the specific challenges the user presents. For example, there is the SUREclose Freeswing door closer with no resistance for elderly users, or the super-quick, secure collapsible door stop – SWIFTstop – for mental health.”


• Ensuring ‘fair funding’ for mental health – with a commitment to increase investment in mental health services in real terms over the lifetime of the Parliament.


• ‘Giving children a good start in life’, including committing to take forward the recommendations of the recently published Children and Young People Mental Health Taskforce report, Future in Mind.


• Improving physical healthcare for people with mental health problems, including developing tailored public health programmes.


• ‘Improving the lives of people with mental health problems’ – committing to extending Time to Change funding over the life of this Parliament; putting in place better employment support nationwide for those out of work and seeking employment, and ‘urgently reviewing’ the effectiveness of using benefit conditions and sanctions among people with mental health problems.


• Enabling better access to mental health services – with a commitment to consult on proposals to introduce new national waiting time guarantees for mental health services in the first year of the Parliament.


Safehinge says the Symphony doorset ‘package’ also ‘carefully addresses how products look and are perceived, via the use of homely, non-institutional aesthetics’. This includes the option of timber finishes for everything but the handle, while a metal vision panel bead offers ‘the robustness of metal, with the aesthetics of timber’. A recently launched tamper-proof acoustic threshold, described as ‘another first for the mental health market’, is designed to ‘make rooms more peaceful, ensuring that one person is not able to disrupt a full ward, and offering much needed privacy’. The Symphony Doorset package is


co-ordinated by Safehinge, but can be procured as a complete doorset through local doorset and ironmongery suppliers.


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