Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) is the UK’s first mental health Trust to install one of Dutch company Recornect’s Media Wall screens which it is planning to use ‘to help bring calm to distressed patients’.
Incorporating Recornect’s GRASP software, which gives access to a range of interactive applications, the new Cowin-32 (with a 32 inch display) screen, is being used in a seclusion room at the Trust’s Eden Unit in Erdington..
The touchscreen device can be personalised to meet the user’s needs, can display relaxing imagery – for example of nature and landscapes, and pictures that are meaningful to individual patients, and can also be used for writing or drawing. It can be used as a television, radio, or to play games, or as a means for service-users to talk to their families. Via an external ‘app’, staff can determine which options are available to individual service-users. The system can also be used to change the room environment by controlling lighting, blinds, and temperature.
Robert Care, ward manager at the Eden Unit, said: “In the past, we have found it challenging to maintain service-users’ contact with family and carers while in seclusion. This device enables ongoing communication between service-users and carers, and helps maintain their support networks.”
BSMHFT is currently looking at whether the device might be used to support the delivery of clinical care elsewhere within the Trust. Warrington-based Britplas is Recornect’s official UK sales representative.