As an £88m new-build, completed on the University Hospital Llandough site in 2016, Hafan y Coed (HyC) offers a modern, therapeutic and recovery-focused environment for adults experiencing mental health illness.
HyC — a 129 bed facility — provides a wide range of services including crisis assessment, treatment wards, low secure, rehabilitation, psychiatric intensive care, addiction, and neuropsychiatry.
Following the issue of a directive from the Welsh Assembly relating to Ligature Risks in Mental Health Facilities the health board carried out risk assessments. They identified the need to review the current design of the en-suite doors used at the hospital and carefully consider what could be done to improve the safety of patients in their care. Clearly, any solution had to meet the highest safety standards, but it was important to maintain a calming, and welcoming environment.
CVUHB looked at both the door top alarm (DTA) and our en-suite in detail and when they realised the DTA didn’t address the risk of low-level ligatures, our award-winning en-suite door was selected and fitted throughout.
Concerned by the ligature risk imposed by standard timber doors on the en-suites, the Estates and Clinical team looked for an alternative.
Following a competitive tendering exercise CVUHB chose our en-suite based on its ability to resolve the ligature risk across the door, essential for unsupervised areas like a bathroom. The design enables partial observation underneath the door, what we call the ‘leg and feet’ check – just like you would use in leisure centre public changing cubicles – whilst protecting their privacy and dignity.
The cost of the en-suite was significantly better value and less disruptive to implement than the door top alarm.
Senior Capital Projects Manager, Mike Fry said, “The doors we now have installed provide a safer environment for our patients as a significant ligature risk has been removed”.
HyC have the staff-only reset option installed and received “straightforward” training in reattaching the doors. They also use the online training videos with new staff.
Requiring a key to reset the door leaves once they have been detached, the staff-only reset option disrupts the patients’ ligature learning and also helps inform the clinical risk assessment.
Available in a range of colours and printed designs, the door leaves help to create a modern, calming environment that aids recovery. Mike Fry continues, “staff and service users particularly like the graphics on the doors”. Created in a wipe-clean material, with bonded edges, the en-suite door also reduces risk of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs), making it a practical choice.
—Mike Fry, Senior Capitals Projects Manager, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
