FEATURE ARTICLES

A look both at ‘the drawbacks of traditional key systems’ in inpatient mental healthcare settings – especially in removing service-users’ ‘basic freedoms’, and the risk of keys being used for harm, and at an access control specialist’s launch of a wireless solution which reportedly not only maintains security and safety, but also ‘gives service-users some independence and responsibility’.

Concerned about the lack of clear standards for products used in mental health settings, and of guidance and consensus on how to test them, the Design in Mental Health Network has been working with built environment consultancy, BRE, since 2014 to establish standards for testing key performance characteristics for products used in such settings to enable meaningful comparison and aid selection.

The presentation of eight awards celebrating everything from creativity and teamwork, to service-user engagement and product innovation, an entertaining after-dinner speech by doctor, journalist, and health campaigner, Dr Phil Hammond, and a collection that raised over £1,200 for a teenage mental health charity, were among the highlights of the 2019 Design in Mental Health Awards Dinner.

A second look – following our event preview in the January 2019 The Network – at some of the highlights that visitors can expect at next month’s Design in Mental Health 2019 conference, exhibition, and awards dinner, at a new, larger venue, Coventry’s Ricoh Arena – including some of the new products and services on show.

Dr Gareth Jones, Chairman of LED lighting testing and certification specialist, LUX-TSI, discusses evidence of the profound impact of daylight and artificial lighting on health and wellbeing, and explains how – with the right colour mix and intensity at different times of day – artificial light can ‘mimic, or even improve’, the light needed to maintain good circadian rhythm.

A manufacturer and supplier of electronic water efficiency controls explains how it has developed its mental healthcare product portfolio, and some of the key priorities in its design of products for a sector which places demanding requirements on its suppliers.

Multidisciplinary architectural practice, Alessandro Caruso Architects (ACA), has deployed its extensive healthcare design expertise to mastermind the £500,000 refurbishment of an inpatient unit for older people in Hull that predominantly houses patients with organic mental health problems.

With an ageing demographic, building science centre, BRE, working with partners, has created a new ‘demonstrator home’ – ‘Chris and Sally’s House – the Living with Dementia Home’, to showcase how housing adaptation can support those living with dementia.

Glasgow-based camper-van conversion firm, Caledonian Campers, has undertaken what designer and manufacturer of specialist thermostatic mixing valves, showers, and taps, Horne Engineering, dubs an ‘outstanding bespoke conversion’, to create a special ‘Show Van’, in which it can demonstrate its product range to hospital engineers and facilities management staff, infection prevention and specialist care staff, architects, consulting engineers, and FM providers.

The Design in Mental Health Network’s Innovation & Testing Workstream says that following last summer’s workshops for estates and facilities, design personnel, and manufacturers, followup such events for clinical staff held in the past 3-4 months have provided further valuable feedback towards the DiMHN’s and BRE’s joint development of formal guidance for testing of some of the most widely used products in mental healthcare settings.

Matt Tebbatt, managing director of Midlands-headquartered multidisciplinary building design company, One Creative Environments (One), discusses the company’s work designing the Falklands Islands’ first ever purpose-built Vulnerable Extra Care Facility. Alongside this, One also designed the first phase of the redevelopment of the Islands’ only acute hospital.

Paul Pope, head of System Integration and Technical Support at Apollo Fire Detectors, highlights the challenges associated with fire detection in mental health facilities, and explains how the latest detection technology is helping to overcome them.

Bedfordshire-based Stafford Bridge is best-known as a supplier of high security blast and ballistic-resistant door and window products.

Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Lamb, Minister of State for Care and Support at the Department of Health from September 2012 to May 2015, and a committed campaigner on mental health, will be among the keynote speakers at May’s Design in Mental Health 2019 conference in Coventry.

DiMHN director, Russell Hogarth, and Nigel Farnworth, manager of the Creative Communities Group UK, and two community members, recently visited Brussels to spread word of CCGUK’s work and strengthen bonds with key European community learning organisations.

Designplan Lighting, a ‘pioneer in robust LED lighting’, has recently developed a ‘Tuneable White’ version of its Basilica LED luminaire – designed to help regulate service-users’ circadian rhythms.

Trudi Beswick, CEO of Caudwell Children, describes the meticulous thought that has gone into the design and construction of the new Caudwell International Children’s Centre.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto was the subject of a presentation, ‘You’ve Changed’, at May’s Design in Mental Health 2018 conference.

Exeter-based Grainge Architects was last summer appointed to design one of four new Mother & Baby Units commissioned by the NHS in England to allow women needing mental healthcare to stay with their babies while receiving the care they need.

Philip Ross, a DIMHN Board member who leads the Network’s Testing & Innovation stream, reports on the ongoing joint work by the DIMHN and the Building Research Establishment (BRE) to develop and launch product testing standards for some of the key products used in mental healthcare settings.