Freelance writer, Debbie Giggle, talks to Antonio Lourenco, Global Product manager at Altro, about what the flooring and wall cladding specialist dubs ‘an innovative collaborative research project to assist safety and wellbeing in acute mental health wards through better design of buildings, components, fixtures, and fittings’.
Acute mental health units present particular challenges for health estate managers, in terms of the specification and maintenance of building components, fixtures, and fittings, but these practical everyday aspects are known to have a direct impact on clinical outcomes. The Department of Health and Social Care stresses that: ‘The environment provided by acute mental health services is a crucial element in the delivery of positive therapeutic outcomes for serviceusers, their safety, and the safety of staff and the wider community’.
Designing and maintaining high-secure units is problematic, as patients have complex needs that are not generally experienced in other clinical settings. Developing building components and fittings for use in wards of this type is also challenging, as manufacturers have limited opportunity to study the everyday demands of acute mental healthcare settings when designing products for these applications. In this article I will be reviewing the latest guidelines for acute mental health wards from the perspective of the health estate manager, and will report on an innovative collaborative research project which has delivered tangible benefits for those involved in creating and maintaining high-secure wards.
Guidelines
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