RECENT NEWS

At its AGM held at IHEEM’s Healthcare Estates 2016 event in Manchester in October, the Design In Mental Health Network announced the appointment of new members of the board of DIMHN.

People in England’s experiences of being cared for in the community for their mental health problems – ranging from depression to psychosis –had not improved since the publication of the corresponding report in 2015, the results of the Care Quality Commission’s Community Mental Health Survey 2016, published last November, revealed

Pineapple Contracts has released four new products targeted at ‘challenging environments’.

Designer and manufacturer of anti-ligature products, Intastop, has added to its range of removable doorstops with its SecuraStop Multi Point DoorStop where one operation opens multiple locks.

Chubb Community Care, part of Chubb Fire & Security Ltd, has been awarded a place on a significant framework agreement with ESPO, a public sector-owned professional buying organisation, to deliver the latest technology-driven care solutions to organisations throughout the UK.

Local plans to ‘transform care for people with a learning disability and/or autism’ have been published by NHS England, ‘backed by millions of pounds of dedicated funding’.

The NHS has launched a programme that it says will ‘each year help an extra 30,000 new or expectant mums who experience serious mental ill health’.

The Department of Health is to put £816 million in funding into research into key areas including mental health, dementia, and antimicrobial resistance.

The University of Cumbria has received £70,000 in funding from the CRH Charitable Trust towards ‘a unique research project’ which will investigate the issues of autism and the criminal justice system.

A new low secure mental healthcare facility just outside Wellington near Taunton is now complete, say the architects, P+HS, who have been working closely with developer, Montpelier Estates, to deliver Wellesley Hospital, which will provide ‘high quality, recovery-centred care’ for a range of users.

A manufacturer of products ‘designed to protect doors, people, and places’, has strengthened its field sales team with the appointment of three new area sales managers.

A new £14 million ‘state-of-the-art’ CAMHS facility in Chester has been completed. Ancora House, located on the Countess of Chester Health Park, will provide Tier 4 inpatient and day patient care for children and young people with severe and/or complex mental health conditions ‘beyond the remit of community services’.

The new GalvinCare Anti-Ligature Shower Control Valve with Electronic Activator – winner of the Product Innovation of the Year Award at May’s Design in Mental Health 2016 Awards – was designed to provide service-users and patients with an easy-to-use way to activate and control a shower, ‘while providing the anti-ligature and vandal-resistant features needed in mental healthcare environments’.

Apollo Fire Detectors has launched a new mobile ‘app’ for iOS and Android devices to help users ensure compliance with BS 5839-1 rules and regulations when installing fire detection and notification devices.

With the mandate for the use of Level 2 Building Information Modelling on public sector projects now in force, Intastop has seen ‘a noticeable rise’ in downloads of its ‘BIM-responsive data’, and has accordingly expanded its library to include its ‘IVision’ vision panel and ‘unique’ Door Top Alarm.

At last month’s IFSEC International 2016 event in London, UK biometric face recognition system specialist, Aurora, unveiled a claimed ‘world-first’ in access control technology – a system that allows registered users to open doors simply by looking at a sensor, with no need for additional verification such as tokens, cards, or PINs.

Woodland View, a £46 million adult acute mental health and community facility in Irvine in Ayrshire, has opened its doors to service-users.

Thames Lodge, a new £60 million mental health building at St Bernard’s Hospital, Ealing, designed by David Morley Architects, and built by Kier, has opened.

At May’s Design in Mental Health Network 2016 conference at the National Conference Centre in Solihull, the Design in Mental Health Network (DIMHN) and the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care and Low Secure Units (NAPICU) announced that they would be working together to create new design guidance for psychiatric intensive care units.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare’s proposed £21 m new unit for Children, Young People and Families has received planning permission from Nottingham City Council.