Sexual safety on mental health wards

Care Quality Commission, September 2018
Care Quality Commission report based on an analysis of nearly 60,000 reports that found 1,120 sexual incidents involving patients, staff, visitors and others described in 919 reports – some of which included multiple incidents. More than a third of the incidents (457) could be categorised as sexual assault or sexual harassment of patients or staff.  Providers and people who use services told the CQC:

  1. People who use services do not always feel that they are kept safe from unwanted sexual behaviour
  2. Clinical leaders of mental health services do not always know what is good practice in promoting the sexual safety of people using the service and of their staff
  3. Many staff do not have the skills to promote sexual safety or to respond appropriately to incidents
  4. The ward environment does not always promote the sexual safety of people using the service
  5. Staff may under-report incidents and reports may not reflect the true impact on the person who is affected
  6. Joint-working with other agencies such as the police does not always work well in practice

Click here to view the full report.

European report on preventing elder maltreatment

World Health Organization, September 2018
Estimates suggest that at least four million people experience elder maltreatment in any one year in the European region. This report discusses the scale of the problem in more detail, identifies risk factors for maltreatment, describes the latest evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for prevention, and identifies strategies and key policies to reduce its burden.
Click here to view the full report.

Making Every Contact Count Bulletin – September 2018

The Gosall Library
This Library bulletin provides further reading to support the ‘Making Every Contact Count’ programme.
There are links to recent research papers and articles in each of the MECC areas to give you further background information and evidence to consolidate what you have learned in your training, and to give you ideas and confidence for using MECC in your day-to-day encounters.
Click here to view the bulletin.

Evaluation of the Advocacy in Wirral’s Independent Mental Health Act and Psychiatric Liaison Advocacy Services

Applied Health and Wellbeing Partnership, September 2018
Advocacy in Wirral (AiW) is a peer-led service which provides support, information and representation to people experiencing mental ill-health. AiW work across a range of areas, including community advocacy, welfare benefits, primary care advocacy, drug and alcohol advocacy, Independent Mental Capacity Act advocacy, and hospital advocacy. Hospital advocates provide advice and practical support regarding a range of issues, including welfare benefits, housing, employment, debts and legal issues. Hospital advocates can also attend ward rounds, accompany clients to meetings, and represent clients at local and regional meetings, helping to promote the needs of their client and bring about changes to the support and care of the client. Two elements of the AiW hospital advocacy service, Independent Mental Health Act (IMHA) advocacy and Psychiatric Liaison (PL) advocacy, have been evaluated to explore effectiveness and identity impacts and outcomes.
Click here to view the full report.

The government response to the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) Programme 2nd annual report

Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, September 2018
Response that accepts the recommendations of The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) Programme: Annual Report 2017 – University of Bristol Norah Fry Centre for Disability Studies and sets out a plan of action for each one.  The actions will help address the inequality in life expectancy between people with learning disabilities and the wider population by ensuring that staff supporting people with a learning disability understand their needs and can make adjustments to the way care is provided, to help people reach their full potential.
Click here to view the full report.

Protecting people Promoting health: A public health approach to violence prevention for England

Department of Health, September 2018
This document outlines the extent and impact of violence nationally, covering violence in the general population as well as specific violence types that can impact dramatically on different sectors of society: child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence and elder abuse. It also provides information on how to access local intelligence on violence and related harms. The document describes some of the key risk and protective factors for violence and collects together details of interventions and policy measures that have been effective in preventing violence , giving examples of where these are already being employed in England. It also outlines the policy frameworks already in place to support violence prevention.
Click here to view the full report.

Preventing suicide: A community engagement toolkit

World Health Organization, September 2018
Communities play a crucial role in suicide prevention. This toolkit follows on from the World Health Organization (WHO) report Preventing suicide: a global imperative (WHO, 2014) by providing practical steps for engaging communities in suicide prevention activities.
Click here to view the full report.

Coping through Football: evaluation report 2018

Centre for Mental Health, September 2018
Does the ‘Coping Through Football’ programme deliver benefits to the physical and mental health of people living with mental health difficulties? Coping Through Football was founded by London Playing Fields Foundation, who started the initiative in 2005 in collaboration with North East London Foundation Trust and Leyton Orient Trust. It was conceived in response to the fact that the biggest cause of death of 20-49 year old men was suicide and that given that community mental health services were stretched to the limit, there was an over reliance on medication as a treatment. The report finds that for two out of three participants (39% of whom have schizophrenia) there was a positive change in lifestyle choices around healthy eating and smoking. 54% of participants went on to volunteering, education and training or employment. The report also records that there was a 12% reduction in the number of overnight hospital stays for those who were involved in the project. The report that the Coping Through Football programme is a low-cost intervention in the mental health sector. The cost of one person attending the programme every week for a year was £1,700, which is equivalent to four days in a mental health inpatient bed, or five A&E attendances. Our analysis also highlighted that “the annual cost of Coping Through Football for one year is the equivalent of the costs of schizophrenia to society for just over one person.
Click here to view the report.

Priced out: home ownership and public service workers

Unison, September 2018
Unison research considering the cases of an NHS cleaner, teaching assistant, librarian, nurse and police community support officer and their ability to afford  to buy their own homes.  It finds that saving money for a down payment on a property would take decades – or more than a century for public sector staff in some parts of London.
Click here to view the full report.