We have just done our Reducing Restrictive Practice RRP SeQuIn Tool scoring and one of the areas that it flagged up was around using methods such as Safewards to improve the wards and people’s experiences. This is not something that we have looked at in detail so far but it would be great to know if there were any specific Safewards initiatives that services have found particularly useful and would be willing to share what these were and how they have implemented them.
We have implemented some safe wards on our ward, we have a “getting to know me” board with staff profiles on – we also have a patient version – these have been particularly useful for new staff to support them with what is “safe” to talk about and give them confidence to have conversations with patient. The patient getting to know me board also helps new staff to get to know patients as well as supporting patients in “safe” conversations to have with each other – the patient board came from an idea from a patient who was new to the area. Our RRI team have also done some sessions with staff around safe wards and soft words – this was really useful initially (but probably something we need to revisit) to challenge staff in how they think and approach situations. More recently a member of our RRI team have done some sessions with our patients – although not really safe wards this has been really good for patients and has given them greater understanding of physical interventions, why staff might implement them and it has empowered the patients to discuss this with staff when completing PBS plans etc. Amber Lodge
We’ve started implementing Safewards in our service. We are in the very early stages of it and are having to make adaptations, as it is a model based on acute services and we are forensic. For example, instead of discharge messages, the service users suggested messages of hope due to the length of stay that the guys typically have. We have done this in collaboration with service users as much as possible, so we’ve had 4 coproduction meetings so far, 2 introducing Safewards and 2 discussing how we adapt the first set of interventions to the wards. The service users themselves chose the interventions they wanted to start first and we have rolled with it. I’ve found that often the interventions that staff want are different from what the service users want. It is my understanding that the model is all 10 interventions, I’m not sure on the research on specific interventions and their impact, from what I understand the measured impact has been on all the 10 interventions and not specifically just one intervention. The Safewards website has all the information and it’s free! Happy to answer any more questions on Safewards. Forest Lodge
Each Month at Waterloo we change our interactive noticeboard and choose topics with Safeward’s in mind. We try and focus on highlighting positivity, sharing ideas and creating conversation 1. ‘Unconditional positive regard’; we tackled language on this board– challenging staff to undo their negative clinical lingo and asked people to stick up quotes that sent out positivity 2. ‘Getting to Know us Rainbow’; we used the board to create interactive voting polls– we have disagreed for years on the correct colour order of the rainbow and asked people to vote! It created plenty of conversation and brought back good memories 3. ‘Colour Mindfulness’ people could take a sweet treat and a guide to mindfulness using colour as a focus to try out 4. ‘Wellbeing pledge’ if its written you are more likely to stick to it (right??) we asked people to stick up health pledges for 2020 5. Giant Advent– first to the board could reveal the days picture and message of hope (and find a chocolate coin!) 6. ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner’ helped us share our NSUA winning news and asked for people to add their own positive stories to a plate 7. Stress Bucket– this allowed us to throw in our stresses as we passed by and share coping strategies. https://www.yorkshireandhumberinvolvementnetwork.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/RRP-Bulletin-12-April-2020..pdf Waterloo Manor
Click here to access the Safewards website! Safewards
