The tragedy of a patient dying through suicide is something that healthcare services strive to prevent. Although staff caring for those admitted to mental healthcare facilities will generally be highly vigilant over their patients’ wellbeing and state-of-mind – which should greatly reduce the risk of self-harm or suicide – predicting and preventing fatalities among such inpatients can be ‘fraught with difficulty’.
So says Ian Bartlett, head of Product Management at Assa Abloy Security Solutions, who here discusses the anti-ligature solutions being developed to prevent patient casualties, and explores the balance between patient safety and patient privacy.
Research by the University of Manchester has discovered that approximately 13 per cent of suicides by people in contact with mental health services are by current inpatients, and that over a quarter of inpatients die on the ward, the majority by hanging/ strangulation.
Removal of the means to suicide has been a major policy in the UK, and specifically the removal of potential ligature points, where self-harm could occur. A ligature is a cord, wire, or bandage, that can be used for tying or binding, and within mental health facilities, sheets, towels, and shoe laces, could all be misused for self-harm.
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