Creating controlled but more humane settings

Jo Makosinski, a journalist specialising in healthcare architecture and estates and facilities management, considers some of the drawbacks of ‘traditional’ key systems in inpatient mental healthcare settings, including the risk of keys being used for self-harm or harm to others. She also talks to Safehinge Primera, which has developed a wireless access control solution which fits directly onto doors that it says not only safeguards service-users and staff, but is also ‘about recovery, and giving inpatients some independence and responsibility’.

When you book a room in a hotel, can you imagine being told there are no keys, and to just head up to your room and staff will lock your door when you need to? Would you feel safe and secure in such a situation? Probably not, and you would very likely just turn around and leave. You would expect to be given a key (most likely an electronic keycard), enabling you to come and go as you please, while at the same time protecting your property and privacy. Yet in mental healthcare settings, it is commonplace for patient rooms to be locked or unlocked only when serviceusers are accompanied by a staff member.

Philip Ross, Commercial director at electronic access control specialist, Safehinge Primera, explains: “If you couldn’t secure your own space, would you feel comfortable leaving your room, even to go to Reception to get someone to help? People who are already in a heightened and fragile state of mind then don’t have the simple confidence of security. The resulting insecurity can lead to people jumping to conclusions that someone else has been in their room, or has perhaps stolen something, when they might simply have misplaced it. Small things like this can lead to arguments flaring up between service-users.  A lack of confidence in security has a significant effect on people and their wellbeing.”